It may be time to retire Grafton High School’s Indian mascot

The Washington Redskins are considering it. So are the Cleveland Indians, home to the “tomahawk chop.”

Will the Grafton High School Indians be the next to retire their team name?

Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings expects to take up the issue of Grafton High School’s longtime mascot at the School Committee on July 14, during a time when Black Lives Matter protests have called into question how all minorities are portrayed. 

The Nipmuc Nation, based in Grafton, has spoken out about the issue before. In 2016, the last time the question of Indians as high school mascots was raised, the tribal council released a statement unequivocally against the practice.

“Imagine, for a moment, what these negative stereotypes mascotting would cause for African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos. There’s a reason why no one wants to be mascotted,” wrote Love T. Richardson, tribal clerk and council member of the Nipmuc Nation Tribal Council. “There is a reason no other ethnic group is mascotted to the degree Native Americans are. It means having our culture misappropriated without our consent and have it clowned. Mascotting another group of people without their permission isn’t about love, respect and honor but privilege and power, the same privilege and power that discriminates against Native American people and our nations every day.”

Minutes from the Grafton School Committee at the time do not indicate a vote or a discussion of the Indian mascot. While Grafton High School does use a “G” logo styled after the Green Bay Packers on its football field and athletic gear, an Indian in full headdress remains on the scoreboard for Richard Egsigian Field and on the gymnasium floor of Grafton Middle School.

Sarah Vacca, a 2019 Grafton High graduate who is going into her sophomore year at Clark University, recently began a change.org petition calling for a mascot change. As of Monday afternoon, it had more than 600 signatures.

“The mascot is a problem,” she said. “As students, we all talked about how it was bad but nothing ever seemed to happen.”

In addition to offending the Native American tribe that holds the smallest reservation in the state — the 3-acre Hassanamisco Nipmuc Reservation on Brigham Hill Road — the mascot is also a matter of concern to more recent residents of Grafton, she added. The town has a growing population of residents from India.

“Obviously our ‘Indian’ is Native American, but our Indian students are subject to racist misconceptions about their food, their accents,” Vacca said. “There are actual Indians being bullied at Grafton High School, and the mascot doesn’t help.”

In response to the petition, Brittney Peauwe Wunnepog (Little Leaf) Walley posted this:

I am Nipmuc. My name is Brittney Walley. Using Indigenous Peoples as mascots is dehumanizing. This is not a new or novel idea at this point; it’s an obvious fact. My sincerest belief is that the concept of using Indigenous Peoples as mascots should already be a non-issue. It is frustrating to know that countless tribal members before me have already made it abundantly clear that it is unacceptable, and yet the issue has not been resolved. Because there is still a need to address this, it is apparent that the authority and sovereignty of tribal leaders that came before me were denied respect, and empathy. For that there is no excuse. I am hopeful that my letter will not be ignored like the many statements, letters, and scientific evidence that have come before mine. The combination of frustration and hope is painful to contain in my heart and mind. I write this letter out of frustration in that I must write it at all. I write out of respect for the leaders, elders, and ancestors who have already fought for their civil rights and have passed the fight down to people like me. I write this letter out of hope for the future seven generations to come, Indigenous or not. I hope that this will not need to be a fight that future generations of Indigenous youths inherit, and I hope that non-native youths have more self-awareness and empathy so that they are poised to simply admit when they are wrong, rather than prolonging a harmful issue.

The most common argument in favor of using Indigenous Peoples as mascots is that the mascot, team name, slogan, etc., is used to “honor” Indigenous People. This argument is self-serving and shortsighted—honor cannot be forced on anyone. The concept may seem like a respectable thing to do for the “natives that once lived here,” but the fact of the matter is that native people are still alive and still face a plethora of issues that originated with the colonization of their ancestral homelands. This “honor” is not genuine; it is patronizing.

Using Indigenous Peoples as mascots creates an open-ended problem regarding  native representation in the context of sports. Even a simple headline like, “Local sports team beats the Grafton Indians” is violent and offensive, especially considering that there is a Nipmuc reservation in the town of Grafton. I hope that one day we will not have to worry about explaining to children at local sporting events that “beating Indians” is violent and shrouded in a dark history of colonization, genocide, and to this day, deep disrespect. A multitude of actionable steps are available should society want to honor Indigenous Peoples appropriately. However, using our images as mascots is not one of them. 

It may feel good to non-native people who believe the idea is positive, but unless you are native, you do not get to make that decision. If you hurt someone else, you do not get to decide how much it hurts nor do you get to decide if it indeed hurts at all. But you do get to decide if you care to do something about it. Clinging to the façade that Indigenous Peoples as mascots is honorable is self-serving. If this behavior is not quelled, it will be normalized and embodied by non-native youth, and native youth will be repeating what I am saying in the years to come.

Another popular argument for using Indigenous Peoples as mascots was born out of preserving history and supporting representation. This is simply a crutch. It shows that true history and representation are not actually priorities, and that the communities supporting such mascots are guilty of not putting real effort toward teaching history and supporting Indigenous representation. Instead of using inappropriate mascots, why not simply teach the history that everyone is trying to “preserve”? For instance, the area we live in is a literal Algonqian word, despite the common pronunciation being anglicized. Massachusetts means “the place of the great hill.” The prefix massa refers to “great, or large”; the root achuse means “hill”; and the suffix et notes a location or place. (Consider my ancestral-lands-turned-ski-resort Wachusett, for context.) I find it hard to believe that this history and precise language is conveyed properly by mascots that are clearly racial slurs, such as: “The Brownies,” “The Red Raiders,” or “The Redmen.”  That’s not how I want to be represented or remembered. Massachusetts is rich in Indigenous history, and it will not be forgotten if it is respected and taught. As for representation, there are many local Indigenous artisans well studied in their craft. There is no shortage of people who love to represent their culture. Perhaps the only shortage is of opportunities. Imagine a community changing their mascot to be something appropriate, while simultaneously elevating local Indigenous Peoples through a summer concert series, new mural, or story time at a community center such as a library.

As an Indigenous person who attended Massachusetts public schools from pre-kindergarten through high school, I can assure you that these names did not make me feel welcomed or represented. I never had to attend a school that used my image as a mascot, but the ones that did made me uncomfortable, albeit at that age I could not properly articulate why I felt such discomfort. Consider that the first time I was bullied in elementary school, a little boy in my grade came up to me and taunted me for being “Indian” and demanded to know where “my feather” was. Misrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples taught an elementary school child how to attack someone for their culture, and using Indigenous Peoples as mascots only exacerbates the problem.

Even the most straightforward mascots and names are harmful without a thorough and proper platform. I invite you to consider what happened to my father, the Nipmuc pauwau (medicine person), when he was out shopping. My father rarely leaves the house without a hat embroidered with the words “Native Pride” on the front. This hat has many pins on it expressing his life achievements. Some pins indicate his status as a Navy veteran, others show that he is a retiree from the Army Corps of Engineers. Among these pins is one on the back of the hat that reads “Nipmuc Pride” printed over a Nipmuc symbol of a corn sapling. While he was at the grocery store, a young teenage boy read the “Nipmuc Pride” pin from the back, because he asked my father if he worked at Nipmuc High School. It is obvious this boy meant no harm, yet it is completely disheartening. He had someone with a wealth of Indigenous knowledge right in front of him, but when he read “Nipmuc Pride,” this poor child’s first thought was not of the Nipmuc People but rather a local high school. I believe that once people who support using Indigenous Peoples as mascots stop dehumanizing and objectifying Indigenous People, they may give themselves a chance to remember that Indigenous People are just as alive as they are and that they might just be the key in helping them bring more Indigenous representation to the town.

It is clear that removing Indigenous Peoples as mascots from schools is a threat to those who feel a sense of pride in their town. However, removing such mascots is part of a larger reclamation movement that is multifaceted and happening everywhere. Indigenous People are working to restore traditions and languages, searching for missing women, and fighting to hold on to what little of our homelands we have left. The realities that Indigenous Peoples face go far beyond the issue of destructive mascots. Part of this reclamation is disposing of ideas and actions that dehumanize us. We are not in the business of taking away someone’s memories. We are in the business of being seen as human beings and respected as such. So far, the lesson being taught is that it is okay to hurt someone if they are a threat to your pride. That is unacceptable behavior and not justification to continue using Indigenous Peoples as mascots.

I believe this is an opportunity to search for a common goal that we can all satisfy together. If you want to honor local Indigenous Peoples, reach out to them and ask what you can do to help their current issues. If you want to remember Indigenous history, then teach it and teach all of it for better or worse. If you want to support Indigenous representation, contact Indigenous representatives and see what can be done. Using people—especially people who have been systematically oppressed—as mascots is not acceptable, not honorable, not helpful in teaching, and is destructive for representation. Many efforts have been made to help correct these injustices, and there are countless ways to move forward in a good way. There is no excuse not to.

Sincerely,

Brittney Peauwe Wunnepog (Little Leaf) Walley

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