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Today’s blacklisted Americans: NY bans whites from honoring American Indians in school nicknames

American Indian banned by New York
The American Indian, banned by New York

They’re coming for you next: The education department of New York state has now ruled that all schools outside of Indian reservations must change the names of their schools and teams if they make any reference to American Indian culture or history.

In a November 2022 memo sent by the state, all school districts were ordered to stop using Native American-themed mascots, nicknames and logos by the end of the 2022-2023 school year or risk being in violation of the Dignity Act. Districts risk the removal of school officers and the withholding of state aid if the order is not followed.

That order required schools such as Oneida (Indians), Oriskany (Redskins), Richfield Springs (Indians), Sauquoit Valley (Indians), Waterville (Indians) and West Canada Valley (Indians) with nicknames directly linked to Native Americans to change.

The ban also applies to schools like Liverpool (Warriors), Westhill (Warriors), Weedsport (Warriors), Canastota (Raiders), Clinton (Warriors), Fulton (Red Raiders), Hannibal (Warriors), Indian River (Warriors), Lowville (Red Raiders), Morrisville-Eaton (Warriors), Utica Proctor (Raiders) and Whitesboro (Warriors), with less obvious Native American connotations.

The brainless absurdity of this can hardly be measured. In every single case, these sports nicknames were chosen to honor the indomitable courage and fighting ability of American Indians. Schools wanted their sports teams to exhibit similar traits when playing their opponents. None of the names were meant to denigrate anyone.

Moreover, a number of these nicknames have nothing to do with the American Indian. As the article at the link notes, the Liverpool Warriors’ name refers to the Roman Armies, a fact that was stated explicitly when the school rebranded its mascots in 2003.

In fact, this stupid ruling means words like “warriors” and “raiders” are now forbidden from use, no matter the context, because someone might be offended sometime in some random way.

Worse, by forcing these name changes New York’s education department is wiping from history any memory of those Indians. It is now forbidden for non-Indians in New York’s government to honor any American Indian tribe in any way. These first immigrants to North America are now non-persons, their history, culture, and best qualities erased forever by an insane government so obsessed with race, “safe space,” “triggering,” and micro-aggression that its mind is closed to learning anything at all.

This banning however is hardly the end of this story. If you can ban these words out of fear of offending someone, you must proceed to ban a lot more, since the free exercise of speech is always going to offend someone. As admitted by Liverpool’s superintendent Daniel Henner, “We would never want to do anything that would offend anyone.”

I guess that means you need shut down the school entirely, because under such a premise it is impossible to teach anything.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

7 comments

  • Jhon B

    I get a lot of references to groups are now considered derogatory, but I just don’t get why you can’t use any reference to an indian when it is not. This is the kind of stuff that causes more hate than and creates new problems rather than solve existing ones.

  • Jhon B: I am an native American, born in Brooklyn. I will not use the language of the left to disinherit myself from my own homeland.

    “American Indian” is clear and precise. They are also as native to North America as I am, their ancestors having immigrated here from Asia.

  • Robert Pratt

    I like the British term too: Red Indian. Makes sense given their default association being India. My wife is from Mexico and we’ve spent a good deal of time there. It’s always been fun to ask people about phrases that activists here say are derogatory toward Mexicans. Mostly we’d find actual Mexicans unconcerned with such. They were most offended by U.S. people calling themselves Mexican. It’s not a race but a nationality!

  • James Street

    There’s a guy I see once or twice a year at parties who is part Indian, I mean Native American, and very proud of it. One time I asked him a question about how Indians lived 200 years ago and he turned red and said with a tense angry voice “there are many First Nations Peoples who would be offended if you used the term ‘Indian'”.

    Now it says “THE PUYALLUP TRIBE OF INDIANS” in big letters on the side of his tribe’s brand new casino in Tacoma:
    https://emeraldqueen.com/mt-content/uploads/2021/03/900-neon-untitled-1.jpg

  • GaryMike

    RZ:

    I, too, am a Native American. I, too, choose not to burden my brain with the left’s attempts to burden the rest of us with their urges for power over everyone.

    They won’t have me, and they won’t have my guns. The 2nd Amendment protects us from their ilk.

    It’s kinda a Little Big Horn notion of power v. power.

  • Alton

    The Great General Custer though it was too much trouble to tow his two Gatling Guns and a load of ammo along with His Mounted Troopers, left them to his backup formation which never reached him in Time, after he sent them on a wild goose chase . . .

    interesting ?, the ATF says that a working Gatling is Not a Machinegun, (but a piece of plastic is) and requires no extra Tax Stamp to own.
    New manufactured ones in .22 caliber are a Whale of FUN ?.

    Note: My COLLEGE is called the Tribe, and was the first to admit Indians back in The 1690s….in the 1990s we fought and Defeated the NCAA when they wanted to strip the College of the name usage or ban the University from All Sports.

    Yours Truly….
    1/125th Cherokee
    1/125th Chickahominy

  • bill53

    I am from Massapequa (tribe name), NY (Long Island), and lived near Tackapausha Preserve (chief’s name). Massapequa High School’s nickname is the Chiefs.

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