"Before the New Year, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster sent a letter to 39 Wisconsin school districts asking them to reconsider their American Indian mascots, logos and nicknames. Local school districts across the state now have the opportunity to shine � to demonstrate their commitment to fostering a positive learning environment for every student by replacing their mascots with images that all students and their families can feel comfortable and proud supporting.
So-called �Indian� mascots are misleading, inappropriate and oftentimes blatantly offensive. Wisconsin�s share of these images spans the whole range � from empty names that have been divorced from old stereotypical logos to crowds that still perform the �tomahawk chop� at school sporting events. Take my high school, Wauwatosa East, for example. In the �40s and �50s, our school was represented by a dancing caricature called Tommy Hawk. He carried � you guessed it � a tomahawk. Somewhere down the line, he morphed into Tommy Raider, who was a truly ugly stereotype. Older siblings of friends told me the mascot would show up at sporting events and dance around to rile the crowd. By the time I entered high school, the Tommy Raider mascot had been formally dispensed with and our school�s logo was an arrow."
Get the Story:
Elizabeth Sanger: Indian mascots insulting
(The Badger Herald 1/15)
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