It was a passionate student letter in 2020 that caused the Southern York County school board to reconsider its logo: a Native American man, representing the “Warriors.”
Though the conversation had come up before in the suburban district located in southern Pennsylvania, 2020 was a turning point of racial reckoning after death of George Floyd. Less than a year later, the school board voted to retire the warrior logo after it considered research that depicted what impact the reductive imagery had on Native and non-Native students.
“I understand the attachment people have to that at the school,” said said Deborah Kalina, who served on the school board at the time. “But it’s more than that. And I think we did the right thing.”
Three years later, however, the logo — a Native American man with feathers, a tomahawk and pipe — is back after a newly-elected conservative bloc acted on their campaign promise and reinstated it earlier this month. It’s shaken the Native communities across the country who work to challenge such logos, said Donna Fann-Boyle, co-founder of the Coalition of Natives and Allies. When one school district does it, they worry others will try, too.
“Everything could just go backward,” said Fann-Boyle, who says she has Choctaw and Cherokee heritage.
It’s a marked departure from the larger tide of communities deciding to change their mascots, a trajectory that has been underway for decades, but ramped up in 2020.
The battle to change the use of Native Americans in logos, team names and fan-driven behavior has often been in the bright spotlight due to major sports teams. The NFL’s Washington Commanders changed their decades-old name in 2019, while Cleveland’s baseball team became the Guardians in 2021. Protests are being planned at the Super Bowl once more in response to the Kansas City Chiefs.
But beyond the high-profile fights to change names, mascots and team identities, there are battles going on in local communities. It’s a…
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