Ed Rice Special to the Bangor Daily News Recently, a friend of mine, who was an anti-Vietnam War activist, had a surprising message for me, concerning my involvement in a now six-year campaign to end the use of Native American nicknames and mascots in my home state of Maine. Yes, it was all the way back in May 2010 that I, the author of a book on Louis Sockalexis (the first-known Native American baseball player who remains victimized by the city of Cleveland for inspiring a disrespectful … [Read more...]
Maine’s do-nothing Board of Education needs to take on school mascot disrespect
Special to the Bangor Daily News Posted March 30, 2016, at 4:12 p.m. I know many conservatives revere the notion of “local control.” But I believe here in Maine, probably as a direct result of five combative, wholly divisive years of ultra-conservative LePage administration policies, we have come face to face with a very sinister version of this philosophy that merely allows elected officials to ignore injustice and abrogate governmental responsibility. It is now a little more than one … [Read more...]
Let’s build a statue to Louis Sockalexis, baseball’s first Indian, in Bangor
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News He was a college baseball player so legendary in his time that he was inducted into his school’s athletic hall of fame, even though he only attended two years. Then he broke a color barrier and became the first man of his race to play professional baseball. Then he became a professional baseball star, in spite of being subjected to the vilest of racial prejudice and violations of his civil rights from fellow players, fans and the press. Without … [Read more...]
Skowhegan ‘Indian Pride’ website continues to denigrate Native Americans
By Ed Rice (Centralmaine.com, Nov. 13, 2015) Recent use of an alcohol reference is particularly harmful, considering how white people used it to control the native peoples. Since the French, the British and colonial Americans invaded North America, the use of alcohol helped white people to subjugate Native Americans in all manner of nefarious ways and made the indigenous peoples subservient to their respective wills. They cheated them in basic trades for furs and goods, stole lands from … [Read more...]
It’s up to students to end Skowhegan mascot dilemma
By Ed Rice (Centeralmaine.com Oct. 2, 2015) The decision to keep the 'Indian' name makes School Administrative District 54 into a statewide pariah with each successive embarrassing and humiliating headline. Skowhegan Area High School is keeping the entire state from declaring that Maine is the first state in the country to end the practice of school use of Native American nicknames and mascots. As one Skowhegan school official recently noted, sadly, “We have a target on our … [Read more...]
Institutionalized racism is embarrassing for Skowhegan schools
When will town officials, education officials, and faculty, staff and students at Skowhegan Area High School stand up to the 11 or 12 members of the school board who do more thinking backwards than forwards, surrounded by a small but volatile group of residents who threaten and mock the very people they are said to be “honoring?” In the latest sorrowful episode, detailed in a recent BDN account, two “Save the Mascot” proponents, SAD 54 school board member Jennifer Pelotte Poirier and baseball … [Read more...]
On Indian mascots, Maine’s top school officials get failing grade
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News Maine could be the first state in the U.S. to eradicate school use of Native American nicknames and mascots. But our effort to make that a reality has encountered two obstacles: 1. Maine’s four tribes have, in writing, asked Skowhegan Area High School, the sole school in the entire state employing a Native American nickname and mascot to, respectfully, please end its use of the name. The school board has refused. 2. Maine’s highest education … [Read more...]
Skowhegan has a chance to break shackles of acceptable racism
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News Well-publicized across the state, the Skowhegan-area school board, by a narrow 11-9 vote in early May, rejected an appeal by Maine’s four Native American tribes to end the use of their inappropriate nickname and mascot. For the time being, those 11 school board members have thumbed their noses at more than 30 other Maine communities and public schools that have ended such usage over the past decade. Skowhegan is the only school in Maine not to … [Read more...]
It’s time for Cleveland Indians to drop racist logo, not shift blame
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News Our campaign to end the use of Native American nicknames and mascots by Maine’s public schools has reached the last community, Skowhegan, still clinging to the tenets protected by acceptable institutional racism. But more formidable examples of mascot racism remain. One is the Cleveland Indians baseball team and its controversial, racist caricature, Chief Wahoo. In August 2014, I visited Cleveland and spoke in honor of Louis Sockalexis at a … [Read more...]
Skowhegan High School stands in Maine’s way: ending Native American mascot use
By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News When all around her members of Congress stood frightened and mute in the face of Joseph McCarthy’s Communist fear-mongering, Margaret Chase Smith of Skowhegan stood, alone, in opposition and spoke what she knew to be right, what she knew to be the truth. Today, we need that spirit in Skowhegan once again. As we move through the 2014-15 academic year, Skowhegan Area High School is now the only school left in Maine using a Native American nickname … [Read more...]