I’m not sure how many times I’ve driven past Arapahoe High School without noticing that their mascot was an American Indian Warrior. Too many to count because I only saw it two weeks ago, and the only reason I noticed was that Fiona pointed it out to me.
Of course, I had a lot to say about this new information. My judgmental rant included many themes. Themes including but not limited to, “what?! why?! how is this still a thing?!?”
My rant expanded when Fiona shared that a friend had told her that the school had permission to use the Warrior as their mascot. I questioned the truthfulness of the information. I questioned the morality of a white community who, with or without permission, thought this was a good choice.
How would a school even ask permission from a tribe? And why would they ask the tribe for approval and not just pick a new mascot? These questions seemed so perplexing that I concluded the information my daughter’s friend had shared was untrue.
The information my daughter’s friend had shared was true.
The Warrior mascot at Arapahoe High School was developed in cooperation with the Arapaho tribe. Not at first, of course, but eventually, some parents voiced concern which initiated an outreach process to the Arapaho people.
An article published in Colorado Politics written by Marianne Goodland explained that:
“In 1993, the school began working with the Arapaho tribe of Wind River, Wyoming. Originally, the school’s mascot depicted a Pawnee Indian. After complaints about its “pejorative depictions,” then-Principal Ron Booth reached out to the Arapaho tribe, traveling to its Wind River home. After negotiations, the tribe and Chief Anthony Sitting Eagle approved a relationship between the school and the tribe that included a new mascot — the Warrior — designed by a Northern Arapaho artist.”
In the same article, Goodland writes that the agreement between Arapahoe High School and the Arapaho tribe set forth conditions for using the mascot. For example, the agreement stated that “it could not be put on a floor, nor could it be used on football uniforms that could wind up on the ground.”
Then, because the above wasn’t enough information to remind me that I need to keep my mouth shut before making my opinions known to the entire carpool, Goodland wrote about how this tribal relationship took on special significance in 2016 when a student opened fire in the school library. Goodwin reported that the first person the principal heard from after the shooting was the Arapaho chief, adding that, “Tribal elders later traveled to the high school for a smudging [cleansing] ceremony, held before the school reopened.”
So, I was wrong about a lot of things.
I wasn’t just wrong about the facts of the situation. I was wrong about the worldview through which I understood the situation. There was no room in my thought process to imagine a scenario where an Indigenous tribe would want to collaborate with a white suburban high school. Instead, I assumed that collaboration began so that the high school could keep its mascot and reputation clean.
There was no room in my version of the story for the high school principal to reach out to the Arapaho tribe with anything other than self-serving intentions. How else would the principal think it made sense to ask the people who were victimized in the depiction of the school’s mascot to do the school a favor and permit them to keep using the Warrior image?
Goodland reports that about two dozen schools in Colorado use Indian mascots, which is down from an estimated 38 just six years ago. In addition, only two out of the 38 have permission from local tribes to use Indians as their mascots. “The most offensive of the two dozen,” Goodland writes, “includes LaVeta High School in southern Colorado, which uses Redskins, and Lamar High School, whose mascot is the Savages.”
In the backdrop of the dehumanizing use of mascots for sports teams at all levels, I would find it unimaginable to go to a tribal leader and ask for permission to continue to use a warrior from their tribe as the school’s mascot. Could you imagine a school principal shooting off an email to the Catholic diocese asking if the school could use a Priest as their mascot? Or a Rabbi? Or a Sikh? That would be absurd. And inappropriate. And completely disrespectful.
Not knowing any of the backstory (including but not limited to) who the principal is as a person or any of the actual context of the decision to reach out to the Arapaho tribe, I will arrogantly assume that if I were in the principal’s shoes, I would have behaved differently. I would have written a letter of apology to the Pawnee tribe and picked a mascot that did not perpetuate damaging stereotypes of a people who my people had already tried to wipe off the face of the earth. To me, this reads like a run-out of a burning building scenario, but it’s not a building that is burning. It’s a bridge burnt long ago.
Standing in my shoes, I am not sure why any Indigenous person or group would want anything to do with me. Relationships require trust, and trust would require forgiveness, and my ancestors set that ship sailing into the abyss a millennial ago. The more significant issue I face is the belief that even if an Indigenous person or group of people were willing to forgive me, I find myself unworthy of their forgiveness. I find myself untrustworthy of friendship as a person complicit in a system that continues to cause harm.
My self-image invites the possibility of a deeper, more complex motivation for the principal’s outreach. A purer form of ignorance fueled by the innocence of believing a relationship is possible despite the past horrors. The reflective, softer part of me imagines this as a story of great humility, respect, and courage. One born from the loneliness manifest in leaders driven to do right by both their people and the people beyond those they know as their own. A principal doing their best to respect and honor the integrity of an Indigenous community the high school barely knew and yet is intimately associated.
This is a motivation in the middle of two extremes. One that I find both realistic and relatable.
When I think about my reasons for not reaching out to the tribes whose stolen land we now call our own, the biggest obstacle is my willingness to be vulnerable. My refusal to give up control.
I do not want to burden or make demands. I want to protect them from myself—their community from my own. I want to cushion any possible harm by being clear about the purpose of the relationship and the offerings I will bring to the table. The thought of taking anything feels repulsive, repugnant, reprehensible, even as the need to control the relationship is the most distasteful of all.
It is the risk of needing to receive that is the most uncomfortable of all. In a relationship, receiving is also a risk impossible to avoid.
Risk is innate to any relationship, as is mutuality and misunderstandings, and messiness. I would need to confront my deep longing to be in a relationship. I would need to be comfortable not knowing what the purpose was or what the outcome would be. I would need to rest in the reality that the answers I wish to wield as a shield will only rise from the in-between of the relationship. I would need to trust that I am not as powerful as I have led myself to believe. That my actions are not as life-threatening as I imagine them to be.
I would have to decolonize my own worldview. To envision and enable a world where relationships grow between parties equal in strength and voice, and worthiness.
I am thankful that I am wrong as often as I am. I am thankful that the world is a richer, more complex system than the predetermined routes my mind prefers to take. I am thankful for these true stories that leave me lost in translation, scrambling to learn the unpredictable syntax of love.
Thanksgiving is a starting place. A Holy Day built with burnt bridges and broken birthrights. Sorrows and regrets reaching out from hot ash where fires still threaten to blaze us all away.
One principal reaches out to keep something the same and receives the allyship needed to make necessary changes. And for that, we give thanks.