As I scrolled through Facebook one day, I noticed an event which had recently taken place in the town of Whitesboro, NY where I grew up. The event was about our Town Seal and questions regarding its integrity. Our Town Seal which was created in the 1960’s era, depicting the historical story of how the town was founded.

The history of the Seal takes place in the 1800s when a settler named Hugh White founded the area where the town resides today. At that time the Oneida Indian Tribe had ownership of the land. Hugh White lived amongst the tribe for a while until he decided he wanted to make a deal with the chief of the Indian Tribe. The deal would be won through a wrestling match, whoever won the wrestling match would own the land of Oneida. Hugh White won this match, giving him ownership of Whitesboro, NY.

The Town Seal created was supposed to depict this event in history. Unfortunately, to many of those who see this Seal without knowing of the history, the depiction does not look like a wrestling match but rather a white settler choking a Native American. Over the years the Seal has gone under scrutiny a number of times. A petition even went up on Change.Org to get rid of the Seal and replace it with an image that can represent Whitesboro in a better light. This petition received an overwhelming amount of signatures.

During the recent outrage over the summer, as a resident of the village and with the knowledge of our history and the importance of reputation, I decided to create my own alternative Town Seal.

Sooner than I expected, an unofficial vote was announced by the Whitesboro Town Mayor on whether to keep the current seal or settle on a new design. The original Seal won the majority of the votes with my design as runner up. From this experience I have been asked to appear on a number of news station and radio station interviews. In the end the Mayor requested I design the new seal which would be decided amongst the Hugh White decedents and the Oneida Indian Tribe. All of this had caused me to think about the logistics behind this decision making. Why did people think the original seal was controversial? Why was political correctness not thought fondly of by people who preferred to stay with the original seal? I did some research by watching a YouTube famous philosopher who goes by the name, NerdWritter. I also studied some definitions on morality and opinion and I came up with my own theory of what the meaning was of all this chaos.

We can start off with the image itself. In a Graphic Design History course I learned about the artist, Rene Margitte and his piece titled, “This is not a Pipe.” The image displays a blatant picture of a pipe but the words underneath say otherwise. What Rene was attempting to say is the image we are looking at in his painting is a representation of a pipe, not an actual tangible pipe. With that being said, we could say that the Whitesboro Town Seal is a representation or a depiction of the event that took place. To add to this we have the saying of, “You had to be there.” This phrase means that no matter how many times we say what the Seal is supposed to represent, people will always see it differently. In this case, a Seal should be designed to represent something that people can understand on a first glance and be on the same page.

The next question is, why is this Seal so offensive in the first place? To start, when we ask if something is offensive, what we are really saying is, “Is this morally right?” This can be an incredibly difficult question to answer. Morality varies from time, people, and cultures. So, how can we know? Some people may identify something as being morally right with the “Affect” response, or the affect it causes. Unfortunately, the original Seal has affected Native Americans in the community and outside as a trigger of the pain their ancestors went through when the American settlers invaded their land. It’s personal. This response is then countered with the “Intent” response. Did this message really mean to hurt anyone? Of course not. It would have not gotten the stamp of approval when it was designed if it was intended to hurt anyone.

What it comes down to as far as being morally right is we should be looking at both the intention and the unintended consequences. In this situation, the unintended consequences could very well, in the future, be a law suit on the design of the Seal. This is rather possible as a local Native American man has recently attempted suing the Red Skins Football Team for their discriminating name.

Many who disagreed with the change of the Seal were saying things like, “It’s political correctness, and we don’t need that.” Political Correctness is viewed as this tedious circumstance that “Social Justice Warriors” like to preach on Facebook. The actual definition of Political Correctness is itself, only an expression of our concern for groups who are habitually and unfairly discriminated against. In other words, it is an expression on morality and what we understand to be right and wrong at this moment in time. The reasoning why people may get angry and defensive with this kind of action is simply, pleasure. There is pleasure in winning. Therefore, when we point out blatant prejudices someone is enacting, we are in a sense, taking away their pleasure which is disguised to them as their rights and freedoms.

The bottom line is that this discussion is always going to be difficult, but maybe these deeper looks into the problem can help us understand the inner workings of everyone else and why we say or do the things we do. Some things happen around us that we can't change. The only thing to do at that point that can progress us in any way is to try and understand.

Sources:

NerdWriter “The Treachery of Images”:

NerdWriter “Louis C.K. Is a Moral Detective” :

NerdWriter “Dear Sam Pepper (On Socially En-Forced Morality):

NerdWriter “The Secret of Sexism” (above):

Interviews on the New Seal Design:
CBS6 Albany News: http://www.cbsalbany.com/news/features/top-story/s...

TWC News: http://www.twcnews.com/nys/central- ny/news/2016/01/12/residents-vote-to-keep-controversial- whitesboro-seal.html

WKTV News: http://www.wktv.com/news/The_Votes_are_in_as_The_D... visits_the_Village_of_Whitesboro.html

Observer Dispatch: http://www.uticaod.com/article/20160112/news/16011...

Talk of the Town: http://wutqfm.com/interviews/170401