Given the recent discussions on campus about reviving the Indian symbol, I thought it might be helpful to share with the newer members of our community a statement former Dean of the Tucker Foundation Warner Traynham made regarding the Indian symbol. As someone who has been on campus since 1974, I have witnessed the arguments and discussions that have surfaced every 5-10 years regarding the revival Indian symbol, and through it all I feel that Warner, in 1981, made the most compelling argument. I hope he forgives me for truncating his remarks but I tried to capture the essence of his argument. I think the points he made are still valid today and I hope in considering them we can become a community that truly embraces all of its members.
"The Native Americans are opposed to the symbol. Their opposition does not allege that those who adopted it in the past intended it as a put down of Native Americans. The symbol seemed perfectly natural for years since the College was ostensibly founded to educate Indians and because Indians were almost universally viewed in American mythology as competitive and warlike; qualities especially desirable in athletic teams. No one thought much about it until we actually began to admit Native Americans in numbers. When the College did, those Native Americans, in the process of expressing their identity, found the symbol a hindrance, in part, because it is so simple minded. Some of its supporters say it glorifies "nobility"; we used to say the "noble savage".
The plight of Native Americans in American Society today and their history since the advent of Europeans to these shores must make the claim of the "dignity" of the symbol ring hollow in their ears. The Native American community in this country still faces many unresolved problems and, as a group, has an ambiguous relationship to the national government. Beyond that, Native Americans are still oppressed and held in contempt in parts of the nation, as they are largely unknown, except by stereotype, in others.
You may say it is the Native American's ancestor that the symbol represents, not him or her, and you may say it is some ideal of courage, nobility, or love of the out-of-doors, but in the public mind, it is Native Americans who are represented. And the symbol, defined by whites, for whites, is more of the same; the appropriation of a defeated and oppressed minority by whites for purposes of their own. That is what is meant when it is said, the Indian is a mascot. It may be intended as an honor. It is an "honor" some people feel is forced upon them and one they do not want. Whatever may be said, the Indian symbol reflects on the Indians, the real Indians in a particular and special way. It says something about them first. Only secondly does it say something about the people who chose it. That is the problem.
But what about the other side? The proponents want the symbol back ... it is an attack on their view of the institution, the way it used to be, the way it ought to remain ... The question is, is their loss compatible to that which the Native Americans would sustain if it were restored? .... But current undergraduates have no experience of those days. In that sense, their hurt is an imagined hurt. Their distress derives from having been born too late.
There is a line from a hymn that goes "New occasions teach new duties. Time makes ancient good uncouth." That sums up the Indian symbol for me. Native Americans here find the symbol offensive and believe it falsifies a heritage which, while it may be shared in by all, is in a unique sense their own. What is said about Indians, after all, reflects upon them. To argue that that is not the intent is to miss the point.
The symbols of a community should unify that community. They should enjoy an organic relationship or at least a general formal acceptance. The Indian symbol once did that. It does so no longer. Instead, it divides not just its supporters from the Native Americans, but from those of all groups who regard its loss as a small price to pay in exchange for the potential of inclusiveness.
One of the Associate Chaplains cited a story in his sermon a few Sundays ago, in which a rabbi asked one of his disciples if he loved him. The disciple replied, "Yes, of course, I love you." "Do you know what gives me pain?" the rabbi asked. "No," said the disciple, "How would I know that?" "If you don't know what gives me pain," the rabbi answered. "How can you say you love me?"
The love the rabbi spoke of was not passion or even affection really, it was caring. Community requires caring and caring requires the attempt to understand.
