Racism in My Community

Chieftains and Warriors

I live in the bluest of blue states. Perhaps this is up north hypocrisy.

There's a big debate going on in my community about the mascots used for the athletic teams of the town's two high schools. One calls itself the Chieftains and the other the Warriors. The concern is the racist overtones of the two mascots and message they convey about our community's attitudes. The argument against changing the names goes along the lines of keeping tradition. "They're just names. Changing the mascots and the names will cost $100,000! There's no harm meant. One resident said that this is load of PC crap. If the majority is okay with these names, it's okay."

The names and the mascots aren't the only issue. The name of one of the student newspapers is the Powwow. The student cheering sections are called The Tribe and The Reservation. The Mascot for the Chieftains depicts a Plains Indian in full headdress. It's an image that Native Americans find offensive.

Stereotypes - Racism

Here's a definition of racism from Merriam-Webster:

1:  a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2:  racial prejudice or discrimination

Racism goes beyond the definition. It is evident in the language children are using on a daily basis. And, it isn't only white children. Racist language is used daily on our playgrounds. It is a form of bullying. Lola Okolosie, an English Teacher and writer in Great Britain, wrote about racism on the playground.

How white, black and brown students learn the language of racist bullying

She points out that "Children are bombarded with racist messages in the media and public debate. It's no wonder this has reached the playground." The words we use have an effect, especially when used to categorize and demean. We are teaching our children intolerance.

The Business Insider published an article last year, "11 Racist And Offensive Phrases That People Still Use All The Time." Among those words was "uppity." the example used was in reference to disparaging remarks made against Michele Obama.  

A couple years ago, Rush Limbaugh pontificated that a NASCAR audience booed Michelle Obama because she exhibited "uppity-ism." Glenn Beck even defended him, citing the First Lady's love of arugula. During segregation, Southerners used "uppity" to describe blacks who didn't know their socioeconomic place. Originally, the term started within the black community, but the racists adopted it pretty quickly.

But what about mascots? There's an enlightening essay on the CNN Website by Simon Moya- Smith titled, Native Americans: We're not your mascots. In the essay Moya-Smith says words like brave and warrior are not racial slurs, but that misses the point. "When the status of a Native American is demoted to that of a caricature, we are objectified and diminished as a people. We become entertainment, not fellow citizens. How are you supposed to take me seriously if all you see is the stereotypical image of the Hollywood or sports mascot Indian?"

What is most disturbing is the comment from a parent who excused racism because of traditions and because the majority seems to be in favor of keeping the mascots. What is he saying? Is it okay to propagate racism because we've doing it for a long time? Because it is a tradition? To him, and others like him, the opinions of the minority who are offended by the terms used don't matter. If you take his argument back to the time of Jim Crow, the lynchings of that period were justified because it was the prevailing viewpoint of the majority. A recent study found that 4,000 people were lynched in the South between 1877 and 1950. The reasons for the lynchings included political activism and testifying in court. The victims were "uppity." Lynchings continued in this country into the 1960's and not just in the south.

History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names

Learning From Our Mistakes

What we teach our children is important. It shapes our future. When I was in high school we studied the civil rights movement. We read and discussed books like "To Kill a Mockingbird,","Native Son," and "A Raisin in the Sun." The hope was that we would expand our understanding of others and become well-rounded citizens. I'm wondering if that happens anymore. What we have here is a learning opportunity. What better place than in school. We cannot undo what we've done, but we can move forward and try to get it right from this point on.

The Homeless and the Blizzard of 2015

Historic Winter Storm Is A Real Emergency For New York City's Homeless

There are two stats that stand out in this article by Christopher Mathias for the Huffington Post. 

1. There are 60,000 homeless in New York who regularly sleep in shelters. That's about as many people that live in West Hartford.
2. There are 3,300 who sleep on the street.   

The saving grace for the homeless are Christian organizations like the Bowery Mission 

 and Trinity Lutheran Church, Trinity Lutheran has stocked enough food to feed those they serve for a couple of weeks. A lesson they learned during Sandy.

Autism and Chicken Soup

Understanding Ends Isolation

Being on the Autism Spectrum can be an isolating experience, but it doesn't have to be that way. 

The Chicken Soup for the Soul series now has an Autism Book. The publisher and editor-in-chief of the series Amy Newmark was recently interviewed by WTNH's Jim Watkins. 

"The 101 personal stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum create a portable support group for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. They will see pieces of themselves reflected in the stories by other parents and also by people who have been diagnosed with autism and Asperger syndrome. This book also makes it clear that every child on the spectrum is an individual with a unique set of talents and non-neurotypical behaviors."

The Chicken Soup for the Soul company is now located in Connecticut.

http://wtnh.com/2014/08/03/chicken-soup-for-the-souls-autism-book/

Greed and extreme consumerism

Something more to ponder...
According to Oxfam, Credit Suisse and Forbes the top 1% will own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016.

(see more here)

The November before his death, Dr.King tied together civil and human rights with economic justice with these words: "Violence has been the inseparable twin of materialism, the hallmark of its grandeur." In other words, civil rights only addressed the tip of the iceberg. The underlying cause of brutality and psychological violence was an economic system that perpetrated and relied on economic disparity, manipulation and injustice.

Imagine what shape our economy would be in if all those who want to work had a job.

There is no link!

Vaccines do not cause Autism

There is no link. People who continue to assert the link despite decades of evidence to the contrary are putting our children at risk all for the sake of their belief in conspiracies.


The research released in 1998 was falsified and only included 12 cases. Since then there has been a review of actual, rigorous studies. They covered over 14.7 million children finding no vaccine-autism link in any cases, as recently documented by Upworthy in its "All 7 Billion" series about global health and poverty, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.





Graphic by Adam Mordecai & NowSourcing, used under Creative Commons license.

Meanwhile, Measles is on the rise. "Measles cases in the U.S. reached a 20-year high last May. The CDC estimates that in 2013, 92 percent of measles cases occurred in people who weren't vaccinated."

Think of it this way. I drank milk the morning I got laid-off. If I used the logic of the conspiracy theorists about the link between vaccines and Autism...Milk causes layoffs.
For more information, click on this link.  Phony Anti-Vaccine Propaganda Is Killing U.S. Children

Autism Resources

Center in Boise Closes

It takes resources to help people on the spectrum. The Idaho Center for Autism closed its doors because of an issue with resources. The center's director, Stephanie Spencer told KTVB that insurance companies are not required to cover therapy for autism. That means many families are dependent on Medicaid to cover the cost. According to Spencer, how the state covers autism through medicaid has been changing. Students were seeing a therapist two to four hours a week. "It simply is not enough to make progress."

It will be up the schools and parents to pick the slack.

More People Need to Care

This would all change if more people were aware of the need for funding to diversify revenue sources for autism treatment programs like the one in Boise. A starting point would be the realization that contributions to large charities like Autism Speaks do not directly benefit treatment centers like The Idaho Center for Autism.

Wake Up

One in 68 children diagnosed as on the spectrum is the average. In places like New Jersey and Delaware the rates are much higher. School systems cannot keep up. For those who age out of the system...very little help is in place. In some places, insurance is not required to cover the coasts of therapy. The system is being overwhelmed. Wake up! The schools are overburdened and non-profits that specialize in the therapies that offer the chance for children on the spectrum are underfunded. There is no cure. There is no drug to treat autism. 

The example below is just one case of how a school system is bending under the burden. But, it isn't really about the schools. It should be about the children and their families.

Autism surge creates special education teacher shortages