This wasn't what I was planning on writing today, but I read something irritating and was flooded with thoughts. The challenge will be to make this not just angry venting.
Apparently people are talking about the Aloha mascot issue again.
I have addressed this before on the Sunday blog, in the second post in an ongoing series on dominator culture:
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/04/proud-and-mighty.html
The post I saw today was from someone in an Aloha group. They rejected change on the basis of memories and traditions, but also brought up a different change where a different high school (it wasn't even in the Metro League, though we played them in the pre-season) had a name change from "Wilson" to Ida B. Wells.
And then she asked who even knows who Ida B. Wells is?
Okay, Wells is as close as I come to having a hero, and I have strong feelings on this topic in general, but also I am at the point where I feel like I shouldn't just scroll past friends saying stupid stuff. This is not a friend -- just someone in a group I am also in -- but that specific question can illustrate some issues.
First of all, as others have pointed out, changes going forward do not erase your memories. Just two days ago my sisters asked about a former Duck. I went through all of the Oregon basketball players from my time who had gone to school in the area. So Damon went to Wilson, but Antoine went to Jesuit, Orlando went to Benson, Terrell went to Grant and Jordy went to Beaverton. Thirty-five or so years later, this former manager remembers it all.
Here's something else I remember from Aloha. The mascot design was based on King Kamehameha, but with a certain amount of hand-making, he did not look the same on all of the jackets. So I remember some teasing about one looking more like Sam versus Hien and there were probably some that looked like Laramie, but whoever it looked like was always going to be a brown kid. This is because white supremacy is so baked into the structure of our society that if you are not the standard (not white), you are always marked as that. It will come up regularly.
I don't remember them acting offended in any way, but those regular reminders that you are different take a toll. I also was not the most racially aware kid back then... I might not have noticed. It takes a long time to get that some things have a negative impact, even if primarily in the cumulative.
I didn't think they had a problem with their color being noted, but I also remember, years after, a girl with Asian heritage saying she had worried about being looked down on for that in junior high.
She was pretty, and I thought she was popular (I realize now that I did not really understand popularity either). It never occurred to me that it was even possible for that to be an issue for her. That is the really effective thing about structural racism... it can work unseen to destabilize others.
Who is Ida B. Wells? She was a journalist born into slavery who pursued education to support her family, who pursued her civil rights through the law, and then advocated so strongly against lynching that she had to flee the South. Later in life she became a parole officer, not for the money, but so she could keep an eye on recently released prisoners and assist them. She was smart, strong, and persistent in caring about the greater good.
Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, set civil rights back. For all the progress that still needed to be made in 1912, at least the Civil Service was pretty well integrated. Wilson personally fired 15 out of 17 Black supervisors, and introduced screens and separate bathrooms and dining rooms for the Black rank and file workers. One man who could not be segregated due to the nature of his work had a cage built around his desk.
While he is best known for his anti-Black racism, Wilson was not limited to that. Ho Chi Minh tried to meet him at the Paris Peace Conference and was snubbed. He had better luck in Moscow.
This is not to blame Wilson for Vietnam. French colonialism played a much stronger role there, and there were other reasons to be radicalized. The point is that he harmed instead of helping, and he did so because he was a racist.
It wasn't even that he was trying to preserve tradition, because progress had already been made. He wanted those clocks turned back.
A lot of our honors have gone to white men, because they have historically had power. Those men have also been comfortable with quiet racism if not actively racist. That's worth examining.
It's worth examining what we do, and whom it affects and how.
I have no idea how actively racist the original poster is, but that particular example... that's worth thinking about.
If you can know about those two people and hate the change, you appear to prefer racism to antiracism. You can do that, but be honest about it, with yourself and others.
If the change bothers you, but it bothers you that you are bothered, this takes work. Don't be surprised, don't feel guilty, but work toward being better.
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