Description
"Juli Parker, assistant dean of students and director of the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality at UMass Dartmouth wrote an opinion piece that was published in The Standard-Times in 2014, ultimately asking residents to write to their local school boards in Dartmouth and Seekonk to ask them to find another mascot “one that does not offend and misrepresent a culture and a community of people who have endured enough misrepresentation."
Dartmouth High School’s athletic handbook explains the origin of the mascot:
“In recognition of the Native American Heritage of the Southcoast of Massachusetts and out of respect for the Apponagansett-Wampanoag people-the original settlers of this area, the Dartmouth School Committee has adopted the Dartmouth Indians logo as the symbol of the Dartmouth High School sports teams.
This symbol shall be used to signify PRIDE, DIGNITY and RESPECT, characteristics of the Apponagansett-Wampanoag people.
It is also recognized that at all times this logo shall be used in a respectful, non-derogatory manner. This recognition shall include prohibitions on Native American headdresses/costumes, “tomahawk chop” rallying gestures and/or any other activities or characterizations that would portray the Dartmouth Indians in a stereo-typical, negative manner.
Furthermore, the Dartmouth Schools in preserving the integrity and respect for the Dartmouth Indians logo, shall be responsible for educating Dartmouth students on the history and important role that the Apponagansett-Wampanoag part of the Eastern Woodland Native Americans played in the history of Dartmouth.” –Dartmouth High School Athletics Handbook
EXCERPT FROM
Dartmouth High symbol once again under scrutiny - Dartmouth Week - July 28, 2020
https://dartmouth.theweektoday.com/article/dartmouth-high-symbol-once-again-under-scrutiny/49057
North American Indian Center of Boston Executive Director Raquel Halsey stated that she was touched and infuriated by and others’ — stories.
“Even as a cheerleader this young woman is supposed to be taking pride in her community and her peers, and she’s being forced to participate in the erasure of an entire group of people who was here before the settlers,” Halsey noted about one speaker from Dartmouth High.
“That’s the real erasure,” she added. “It’s killing our peoples...physically forcing us into residential schools, and then, at the end of the day, to turn us into a cartoon and to diminish us and our language into a simple sound that we’re expecting our children to use during a football game. And that’s something that we cannot accept any longer.”
According to Davis-Delano, exposure to native mascots has multiple negative effects on the mental health and wellbeing of native young people, decreasing self-esteem and increasing general stress, distress, depression, dysphoria, and hostility.
Effects of exposure to native mascots on non-native people include increased stereotyping of and a tendency to discriminate against native people, she added.
EXCERPT FROM
NAACP: Dartmouth Indian Mascot a Moral Issue - Local NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands - AUG 10, 2020
https://www.capeandislands.org/post/naacp-dartmouth-indian-mascot-moral-issue#stream/0
LaSella Hall, president of the New Bedford branch of the NAACP, said Dartmouth is making the mascot a populist issue when it shouldn’t be.
“This is a moral conversation, right?” he said. “It’s not about what the majority of Dartmouth folks want to do in the face of right and wrong.”
He said the Dartmouth schools are overwhelmingly white, and the new group may not be very diverse.
“We look forward to seeing what will come of this committee, but we have serious concerns about the result of the committee if the committee does not truly include community and Native American voices,” he said.