Have to be Politically Correct! High School Changed Mascot Name It’s Had for 90 Yrs [Video]

Have to be Politically Correct! High School Changed Mascot Name It’s Had for 90 Yrs [Video]

Oh, I understand alright… you people have lost your minds. You have your logic so entangled in political correctness, you could just about justify anything. I suggest the good people of Goshen vote that school board out yesterday and reverse course. You are infected with Marxists who have other agendas cooking. And the Native Americans decrying this are either useful tools or willing participants in a communist movement to cleanse society of history and heritage. The voices of sanity are being silenced in Goshen and across the nation. For 90 years that mascot has proudly represented that school. Now, because of faux outrage and deliberately taking a moniker intended to communicate pride and strength and turning it into a racist epithet, these Marxists are literally destroying the school pride built upon for decades. Gee, Goshen… you fell with barely a whimper.

Goshen High alumnus JT Plavchak listens during the Goshem Community Schools board meeting Monday, July 27, 2015 inside Goshen High School auditorium. The board voted 5-2 to retire the Redskins mascot. (Sarah Welliver/The Elkhart Truth)

Goshen High alumnus JT Plavchak listens during the Goshem Community Schools board meeting Monday, July 27, 2015 inside Goshen High School auditorium. The board voted 5-2 to retire the Redskins mascot. (Sarah Welliver/The Elkhart Truth)

From The Elkhart Truth:

The Goshen Redskins mascot that has represented the community for nearly 90 years will be retired on Jan. 1, 2016.

The school board voted 5-2 in favor of changing the name, which many argued is offensive and derogatory to Native Americans, at its regular meeting Monday, July 27.

“This has really been a hard one for me,” Cripe, the board’s president, said moments before the vote. “I’m overwhelmed. If you could have been in any of our hearts since this was brought to us, you would understand.”

The decision came after more than two hours of arguments from the public at Monday’s board meeting in the Goshen High School auditorium, with more than 50 speakers delivering passionate pleas to the board on both side of the issue.

Those in favor of the change asked the board to take an important step to become a more welcoming community. Redskins supporters asked the school board to take a stand against “political correctness” and continue a longstanding community tradition.

It is unclear what the next step will be in replacing the mascot, but the student body and larger Goshen community have asked to be a part of the process.

Goshen Community Schools board members Jim Ramer and Jane Troup voted against the change, while Catherine Cripe, Bob Duell, Roger Nafziger, Jose Ortiz and Jane DeVoe voted to retire the mascot.

The debate about the Redskins name — about whether it is a way to honor Native Americans or if it is an offensive and derogatory term — has surfaced in Goshen every few years.

Even 20 years ago, small groups approached the school board and asked for a change — but members never thought the timing was right.

Something changed this summer, when the debate resurfaced at the board’s June 8 meeting after two individuals asked the board to consider retiring the mascot.

Proud Redskins attended the next board meeting to defend their mascot, but so did more community members who felt the time has come to find a new mascot to better represent Goshen.

Phone calls filled board members’ answering machines and emails flooded their inboxes.

Even more individuals on both side of the debate attended the July 13 meeting, delivering passionate pleas to the board.

On the night of the vote, the central arguments were repeated by both sides.

Clad in red “SAVE OUR MASCOT” T-shirts, Goshen graduates and current students told the board that the Redskins mascot honors Native Americans rather than disparages them.

“We use the name to show we have strength and pride each time we go out on the field or the ball diamond or the pool,” student Jesse Rhodes said.

But several Native Americans told the board that despite the good intentions, the name hurts.

“Please don’t tell us how to feel or argue we are being too sensitive,” Rochelle Hershberger, who is of Native American descent, told the board. “Don’t use the R-word to my face. I am not your mascot, my family is not your mascot and my children are not your mascot. I have a name. I am worthy of being seen as a person.”

The Marxists start in small towns and work their way out and up. Goshen has just over 32,000 people there. The town strikes me as mostly a conservative small town, but it is being turned inside out and reshaped by political correctness and culture wars. Shame on their leaders for submitting to the roving radicals proclaiming racism at every turn. Now, they’ll let students and the community step in and pick a mascot. It would serve them right if they picked something truly offensive. In New York when they pulled this crap, community members used school board elections to show their disappointment with the decision and other organized efforts were utilized to “change it back.” If my kids went to that school, they’d be on their way to a private school or home schooling immediately. I predict a stunning lack of attendance and participation in sports there for the foreseeable future. This PC nonsense is spreading like a cancer across the country, fanned by the machinations of communists and Progressives. Just stop it already.

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is an editor and writer for Right Wing News. She owns and blogs at NoisyRoom.net. She is a Constitutional Conservative and NoisyRoom focuses on political and national issues of interest to the American public. Terresa is the editor at Trevor Loudon's site, New Zeal - trevorloudon.com. She also does research at KeyWiki.org. You can email Terresa here. NoisyRoom can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.

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