MHS mascot is respectful, not offensive; let’s keep it
January 28, 2016
To the Editor:
There has been a lot of talk about changing the Manhattan High School mascot and logo because they are “offensive” and “derogatory.”
The MHS Mentor even had an editorial advocating this move. Its arguments are that the mascot and logo are inherently offensive to Native Americans and that the change is needed to preserve the concept of basic human rights and dignity.
Mentor editors may not be aware that the Powhattan Kickapoo Nation High School only about an hour from here uses a warrior logo. Obviously those students do not see their mascot or logo as inherently offensive. If they did, they wouldn’t be using it.
While it is possible that the MHS logo, even if not offensive by nature, could be used in an offensive way, the Mentor editorial presents no evidence that is being done.
Another argument the Mentor editorial board makes is that “Native Americans after all are the only ones who can deem what is offensive towards them.” To them that means that any discussion as to whether the mascot is really offensive is invalid unless the argument is made by Native Americans.
Question: How many people on the editorial board are Native american? If there are none, why should the Mentor’s opinion on the subject not be self-disqualifying?
One big crucial fact that the editorial board forgot is that our school-issued planners contain the fact that the Manhattan High logos were designed by Native Americans! I would also note that the mascot issue was debated in 2001 and settled. Since that time I am aware of no change that would warrant reopening the discussion.
My personal view is that the school takes steps to ensure that the logo and mascot are used in a fashion designed to honor, rather than offend, Native American students.
Mike Ford • May 8, 2016 at 9:14 pm
You want a suggestion? Change the mascot. I’ve spoken to Sac and Fox and Oklahoma Choctaw students who attended MHS since 1998. Your school officials brushed off their words and stayed with this paternalist mascot then. I marched with Dine’ Haskell and KU Alumni Amanda Blackhorse, KU Alumni and Osage tribal member Ryan Redcorn, Haskell and Creighton Alumni and Lakota Professor Denny Geyton, and veteran American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt, Ojibwe, at the KC Chiefs Washington Redskins game protesting at Arrowhead Stadium in the fall of 2005. I’ve the paternalism and racism firsthand.
I was leaving the Kaw Nation Pow Wow and I saw the Manhattan Mercury I used to deliver at a Council Grove Gas station. The article was trying to distance the MHS mascot from the NFL Washington mascot. Same paternalism….same denial. This is why I wrote a letter to the editor about the mascot.
You all don’t get it. The reason the Powhattan Kickapoo Nation School has it’s mascot is because THEY ARE INDIANS.Your school isn’t INDIAN. I wrote a seven page letter to the USD 383 Superintendant in 1999 about the Mascot issue. I explained the origin of Manhattan from the Algonquian Manhasset tribe on Long Island, NY. I work with the Christian or Munsee Tribe of Indians in Kansas who after American Manifest Destiny were forced from Long Island NY to Pomona, KS between the 1660’s and 1859. The Caddoan ancestors of the Pawnee Tribe lived in your area. Their historic sites and Paleo historic sites were flooded by the Tuttle Creek Resevoir. The Kaw, Delaware, Cheyenne, and Citizen Band Potawatomi tribes were around Manhattan. The Citizen Band Potawatomi tribe were forced aside by taking allotments and the Union Pacific Eastern Division Railroad by 1870.
I speak of this history because your mascot doesn’t. Your school doesn’t. I remember being in Mr. Schwinn’s Botany class as a sophomore and him speaking about the types of trees and who planted them. We were in Sunset Cemetery. He mentioned 1835. I told him as a 15 year old there was no one here but Indian tribes.
In closing this is 2016. The romanticized times of the past are past. We are not your mascots. This is not in our honor.
Sa anumpa ut yohmi
(My words are true)
Mike Ford
D. J. Cadue • Jan 31, 2016 at 7:29 pm
I find it distressing that the issue of the MHS mascot and logo has come up again, especially now with so many other things troubling our schools. I have always seen the mascot and logo as honoring the fighting spirit of the Native Americans and their surviving spirit that got them through tremendous hardships. We should be honored to have a strong mascot that conveys that these are the spirits MHS strives to achieve. Perhaps a sit down with any Native Americans here who are offended might be a good idea in order to get their thoughts and suggestions. As for the other people who have taken this up and are leading the charge, I am sure their time and energy could be better spent on the many other issues that are in need change or attention.
Andrew Massey • Jan 29, 2016 at 2:34 am
I agree with you! As an Alumni, there is no reason to change this mascot which is never used in the sense that the fear-spreading Editorial Board posts about. Our Indian was designed by Native Americans, who are the non-Native Americans to say what is offensive to a culture that is not their own!