Sorrowfully Dissolving Our Louis Sockalexis Statue Fund
For almost 15 years after first publishing my biography of Louis Sockalexis, BASEBALL’S FIRST INDIAN, in 2003, I dreamed of seeing a statue to him built in my home state of Maine. And then I acted upon it. Between 2017-2018, as a non-Native American, I put together a wonderful coalition, with three well-respected Native Americans from Maine: John Bear Mitchell, Penobscot storyteller, actor and long-time faculty member for the Native American Studies Program at the University of Maine at Orono; David Slagger, Ph.D. candidate and former Maliseet tribal representative to the Maine State Legislature; and the late Theodore “Wayne” Bear Mitchell, the last Penobscot Nation representative to the Maine State Legislature.
Opinion: Silence derails recognition of Louis Sockalexis
At the end of May, Major League Baseball announced it would finally recognize all the records, the statistical achievements, of the players from the Negro Leagues. Hallelujah!
Celebrating end of Indian mascots in Maine high schools
MAINE VOICES: No schools in Maine retain Native American nicknames, mascots – that’s something to celebrate The focus has been on the bill banning the practice in the future, but it should be on the heroes who brought about its end.
Hidden heroes have done the right thing on Indian mascots
All through the late 1990s and well into the 2000s, I was part of the growing national movement to get the Cleveland Indians to drop Chief Wahoo — perhaps, the most racist caricature in use in American society. Frustration with that effort, ultimately successful after many years, led me to more than a decade of trying to work to see that all such offensive nicknames and mascots end in my home state of Maine.
Skowhegan has opportunity again to cleanse itself of insensitive mascot
I’m seeing two inconvenient truths as the Skowhegan Area High School’s 23-member school board — again — considers whether to do the right thing, and end its use of an insensitive Indians nickname and mascot, or, maintain the status quo by continuing to bury its head in the sand, bringing shame and condemnation upon its communities.
Demise of Cleveland’s ‘Chief Wahoo’
Thanks to the courage and persistence of just one man, the end of the appearance of Chief Wahoo on the playing uniforms of the Cleveland Indians will finally end but, sadly, not until the start of the 2019 season. While I’m not sure Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, knows anything about the history of Louis Sockalexis, I do know he cared enough to make a stand against an image that many people believe is the most racially insensitive logo/mascot in use in America today. Bravo, commissioner Manfred.
Curse of Sockalexis…
Not meant to be anywhere near as darkly humorous as Boston’s celebrated “Curse of the Bambino” or the Chicago Cubs’ concerns about curses related to a billy goat or a reviled fan named Bartman, a curse from the late Native American political activist Russell Means was put on the Cleveland Indians baseball team for its inappropriate nickname and racist caricature logo/mascot, Chief Wahoo.
Skowhegan adults desperately need a mascot lesson. Students could teach it to them
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.
Maine’s do-nothing Board of Education needs to take on school mascot disrespect
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.
Skowhegan ‘Indian Pride’ website continues to denigrate Native Americans
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 them again and again in treaties they never intended to honor and robbed them of their self-respect and perverted their health.
It’s up to students to end Skowhegan mascot dilemma
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 backs.”
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?”
On Indian mascots, Maine’s top school officials get failing grade
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:
Skowhegan has a chance to break shackles of acceptable racism
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.
It’s time for Cleveland Indians to drop racist logo…
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 suburban branch of the Cleveland Public Library. Sockalexis was the first-known Native American baseball player who inspired the team nickname and who is most likely the first man to successfully break professional baseball’s color barrier.
Skowhegan High School stands in Maine’s way: ending Native American mascot use
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.
Mr. Smith Goes to Cleveland to Kill Chief Wahoo
As my plane winged its way to Cleveland last week, to give a library talk in praise of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis and against the Cleveland Indians’ continuing use of Chief Wahoo, I began imagining myself as being something like the Jimmy Stewart character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Upon my return trip to Bangor, after thinking about a solitary walk around Progressive Field that left me infuriated by the Cleveland Indians’s treatment of Sockalexis, followed by a earranged luncheon meeting with two executives of the team’s public relations staff, I had to ask myself whether that film title might now more properly be characterized as “Sleeping With the Enemy.”
Mainer confronts Cleveland Indians execs…
As my plane winged its way to Cleveland last week, on my way to give a library talk in praise of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis and against the Cleveland Indians’ continuing use of Chief Wahoo, I began imagining myself as being something like the Jimmy Stewart character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Recognize Sockalexis by ditching Wahoo…
Some day, probably under an entirely new ownership and new organizational leadership, I believe Cleveland’s baseball team will reverse course and demonstrate, like most of the rest of the country is currently doing with mascot and nickname changes, that there are far, far better ways to show respect to our Native Americans and their culture.
Time for Skowhegan, Nokomis to answer: What makes your school so special?
Nearly 30 schools in Maine have stopped using Native American nicknames and symbols, mostly over the past decade. Standing all alone are Nokomis Regional High School of Newport, Skowhegan Area High School and southern Maine’s Wells High School in a race for infamy: Who will be the last to stop this insidious practice in Maine?