{"id":406,"date":"2019-12-04T20:58:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T01:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=406"},"modified":"2019-12-04T21:08:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T02:08:09","slug":"true-colors-how-small-town-republicans-ran-on-a-racist-platform-and-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/true-colors-how-small-town-republicans-ran-on-a-racist-platform-and-won\/","title":{"rendered":"TRUE COLORS HOW SMALL TOWN REPUBLICANS RAN ON A RACIST PLATFORM AND WON"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You\nknow the old saying, \u201cIf it walks like a duck\u2026\u201d which goes along with another\nadage from my childhood, \u201cI smell a rat in Denmark\u201d. These words came to mind\nwhen I first read an article about the young republican candidate, Jason\nMuscara, who was running for and subsequently won a seat on the Board of\nEducation in Killingly. In spite of the candidate\u2019s spin that he didn\u2019t realize\nhe had joined a nationalistic, white supremacist group when he signed up for The American Guard<\/em>, red flags were\nflying high behind his insistence that he is not a racist. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

True,\nhe is not the first young man who has been duped into joining a pseudo\npatriotic organization looking for a place to hang his flag and heart for his country.\nWhite supremacist groups are notorious for recruiting young men to join their\ncause. They lure their prey under the guise of protecting the constitution\n(meaning second amendment rights and certainly not protecting the rights of NFL\nplayers to kneel for justice). According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),\nThe American Guard organized in 2016 with the following goal: \u201cvoluntary community protection,\nactivism, and service based around the ideals of American Constitutional\nNationalism and the preservation of western culture.\u201d  The key word\nwhich should raise alarm bells is Nationalism<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            On\nthe surface it seems innocuous, but one doesn\u2019t have to dig very deep to\nrecognize that many of American Guard\u2019s supporters tout the rhetoric of\nnotorious hate groups such as the Vinlanders\n<\/em>who are hell-bent on a \u201cracial holy war\u201d. \nYet Mr. Muscara insists that he had no idea he was in the company of\nwhite supremacists, which could be chalked up to the impulsivity and naivety of\nyouth were it not for the fact that he and the republican party in Killingly\nproceeded to campaign on a racist platform to reclaim the Redmen mascot at\nKillingly High School.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Never\nmind the fact that most of the vitriol and outrage against changing the mascot was\nvoiced by alumni who should have moved on from high school twenty years ago,\nthe fact is that Native American mascots are plain and simply racist. The\nNational Congress of American Indians (NCAI) first launched their campaign to\naddress stereotypes of Native Peoples in media, popular culture and sports back\nin 1968. They have lobbied for ending the tradition of using Native American\nmascots and stereotypical titles in the sports arena for over 50 years.  NCAI specifically identifies sports mascots\nas being racist and stereotypical. \u201c<\/strong>rather than honoring Native peoples, these caricatures and\nstereotypes are harmful, perpetuate negative stereotypes of America\u2019s first\npeoples, and contribute to a disregard for the personhood of Native peoples.\u201d\n(<\/em>http:\/\/www.ncai.org\/proudtobe<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nwith most things, historical context helps to put the NCAI call to end\nstereotypical mascots in perspective. Most Native American sports mascots,\ntitles and logos were initiated during the early twentieth century, an era\nrampant in Jim Crow laws, lynching, anti-immigration and the KKK infiltration\ninto the northeast and rural areas. It is also a period which institutionalized\nthe continuation of physical and cultural genocide of Native Americans.  However, the names themselves, of which Redmen<\/em> is a prime example, along with The Braves, The Indians, Redskins,\nTomahawks, Warriors, <\/em>etc. harken back to the 19th<\/sup> century when\nAndrew Jackson (Trump\u2019s favorite President, no surprise) had decreed that\nNative Americans must be exterminated in the name of American progress. During the\nperiod of westward migration, treaties were broken, smallpox blankets were\ndelivered to the Sioux Nation as a gift of genocide, and war was a constant as\ntribal nations attempted to retain their land and their culture. But white\nAmericans didn\u2019t stop at denigrating Native Peoples. We all know the horrors of\nslavery and the systemic tactics that were employed to keep people of color in\ntheir place. Asian immigrants, the Irish and the Italians who arrived in the\nmid to late 1800\u2019s to build the railroads and the keystone bridges that\nsupported them, were also given a share of epithets and derogatory names which\nwere meant to dehumanize, or as I like to say, \u201cotherize\u201d a group of people who\nwere not white, Anglo-Saxon protestant.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nthose of you, who are still not convinced that Native American mascots and sports\ntitles are racist, why not conjure up some of the other common stereotypical\nnames for marginalized groups of people as your sports team.  In the tradition of Andrew Jackson and his\ngeneration, why not name your team The\nYellow Men, <\/em>or The Irish Potato Heads<\/em>?\nOr how about The Blackmen<\/em> or worse,\nthe N\u2026..s? <\/em> Surely, you understand how inappropriate that\nwould be, yet when it comes to Native Americans, we have accrued the\nmythological baggage of the noble  savage <\/em> which was perpetrated by 19th<\/sup>\ncentury poets. Somehow we have misconstrued our racist and stereotypical images\nas being \u201can honor\u201d, as if anyone wants to be stuck in a box that may as well\nbe marked \u201cartifact\u201d.  The fact is the imagery\nwhich accompanies Native American mascots denigrates Native Americans as being\narchaic and anachronistic, something from the past, rather than of the present\nand future. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncall to \u201cChange the Mascot\u201d is not just about one little town in Connecticut.\nIt is a national movement led by NCAI and gaining momentum across the country.\nThe state of Maine has banned Native American mascots to be used in public\nschools and many other states have pending legislation to make it illegal to\nuse Native American mascots and stereotypical names on sports teams.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncampaign to keep the Redmen mascot is a sad and desperate attempt by those who\nare not content with the present to keep Killingly chained to an idyllic past\nthat never existed. When I first moved to Northeast CT in the early 1980\u2019s,\nKillingly was dubbed Third World Connecticut<\/em>\nby some newspaper because it had the highest teenage pregnancy rate. I\u2019m sure\nno one wants to go back to those good old days. Like many who do not embrace\nchange and the future, they thrive on nostalgic charge for what might have been\nrather than what truly was. In spite of the myth of an America that was once\ngreat and is no longer, we are moving ever steadily to a better future and so\nbe it, Ho. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nstudents who led the charge to change the mascot at Killingly High School are\nto be commended for their sensitivity to civil rights issues and their forward\nthinking. They are, after all, the link to the future, unlike the backward, small-minded\nand let\u2019s just call it what it is, racist Republican Party which ran a racist\ncampaign and won. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know the old saying, \u201cIf it walks like a duck\u2026\u201d which goes along with another adage from my childhood, \u201cI smell a rat in Denmark\u201d. These words came to mind when I first read an article about the young republican candidate, Jason Muscara, who was running for and subsequently won a seat on the … <\/p>\n

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