When reflecting upon what I was taught about American history, it never occurred to me how slyly I was indoctrinated to believe that wandering European settlers who seized land that did not belong to them, and massacred the native people who called that land home, are symbols of American pride. If we were to truly learn the history of our country and it's people, we would be studying indigenous culture and history rather than indulging in the culture that unrightfully claimed America for their own. For a culture that is American to the core, the Native American narrative is largely left out of many quintessential “American” narratives. Sure, we learn about the first Thanksgiving, and the trail of tears, but what after that? All modern America has to show for appreciating anything Native American is the continuance of Thanksgiving dinner and terribly racist “redskin” and “sachem” team mascots. Luckily, as time has progressed and racism has been realized, many schools and athletic teams have changed their mascots. Such could have been the case in Whitesboro, New York, but as it usually goes, majority vote wins, and in this case, the citizens decided on keeping their racist emblem was far more important than allowing progressive change.
Pictured above is the town emblem of Whitesboro, New York. Depicted is a white man overpowering and tacking a Native man to the ground. Given what is known about Native American history, the meaning behind this emblem is self-explanatory. Nearly 40-years-ago, a Native American group sued the town, hoping to change the previous emblem of the white man’s hands choking the neck of the Native man, to this still distasteful image with the white man’s hands closer to the shoulders. Forty years later, thousands are still in support of changing the emblem to a different image entirely, this time in the form of an online petition. The Change.org petition garnered enough attention and signatures to prompt the town to allow the townsfolk to vote on keeping the current emblem, or selecting a redesigned emblem. An alarming 74 percent of Whitesboro citizens voted to keep the white man subduing the Native man as the image to boast among their police car doors and official papers.
Many questioned why the emblem was such a big deal anyway, and in a town where the population is 97 percent white, there is no perceivable problem. The white man is depicted as the victor, who doesn’t like being a winner? However, if the emblem were to be a white man tackling a black man to the ground, the emblem would have been changed hastily. It seems as though the people of Whitesboro are absolutely incapable of placing themselves in the shoes of a Native American person who could possibly feel offended by the emblem. Say a town existed where the population was 97 percent Native American and their emblem depicted a Native man tackling a white man. Imagine the uproar. Imagine the demand for change. Imagine how different the situation would be. But since the Native voice is silenced as it has been for decades, things like this continue to happen. As if we need another reminder of how the white man took down the Native race.
