Should a Bucks County HS Keep Its Racist Mascot?, The Voices to Save Higher Ed in PA, Kevin E Leven on Internalized Racism, "Root Causes" of Migration in Guatemala, and More!
School is finally winding down as I am finishing up with my students’ exams and grades. After next week I will be freed up to focus on writing and podcasting full time. In the meantime, on this week’s The Wednesday Show podcast, Raging Chicken Media’s Kevin Mahoney and I discuss class, race, & environmental justice in public transport and more craziness in the PA and Bucks County GOP.
Is that even possible? Yes. Listen Here! And please subscribe and share.
The State of PA
It cost about half a million dollars. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled Monday that Neshaminy High School’s racist mascot isn’t actually racist.
However, Bucks County’s Donna Fann-Boyle, a former Neshaminy parent of Chocktaw and Cherokee ancestry, calls bullshit. She told WHYY the ruling was “disgusting.”
“There’s such a lack of respect,” Fann-Boyle said. “There would never be any other minority used as representation for a predominantly white community.”
The school district actually spent about $435,000 to fight for its “right” to keep its “Redskins” name and mascot.
As the Bucks County Courier Times pointed out, The Washington Football Team dropped the same name after it started losing money as a result of public outcry resulting from Native American activism and organizing around the issue.
In the meantime, Neshaminy helps remind us that hate does have a home in Bucks County, PA. Maybe we need to be reminded of that.
Professors and students strike back! Well, not quite the strike I was suggesting might be necessary in last month’s column about Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) Chancellor Daniel Greenstein’s plan to destroy Higher Ed in order to save it: Only a political uprising can save PA’s higher education system. But people are pissed off, they are speaking out, and they are organizing.
Please follow The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, PASSHE Defenders, and Save our State Schools on Twitter to follow and support the resistance.
Kevin E Leven, co-leader of the Bucks County Anti-Racism Coalition, talks to online storytelling community Grow Through It about learning and unlearning internalized racism. Kevin was featured on Meet a Progressive in April when we learned about his anti-racism organizing in Bucks. Watch and listen to his insightful critical self-reflections here:
Beyond the U.S. Bubble
Sometimes, or actually often, the wheels of justice grind way too slowly.
“Twenty-two years after the National Security Archive published the notorious “Death Squad Dossier” of Guatemala – which chronicled the kidnapping and disappearance of 183 people by government agents over a period from 1983-85 – police arrested 11 former military and security force officials on varying charges of forced disappearance, torture, rape, and assassination connected to the document.”
As the National Security Archive pointed out: “The Dossier, or Diario Militar (Military Logbook), is a collection of military intelligence and police records documenting the Guatemalan regime’s use of clandestine detention, torture and death to target people perceived as leftists and enemies of the state.”
If you use this as a launching pad to dive into the history of the country, it offers a window into the U.S. role in the “root causes” of migration that Vice President Kamala Harris supposedly wanted to address during her visit to the Central American nation. The United States is responsible for orchestrating the 1954 coup in the county which led to a 36-year civil war resulting in over 200,000 mostly Mayan Guatemalans killed, with tens of thousand tortured and disappeared. It was genocide. Oh, and U.S. presidents like Ronald Reagan also supported genocidal dictators, Washington helped train death squads, and much more. (Former President Bill Clinton to his credit actually apologized for the U.S. role in Guatemala.) Harris forgot to mention this though. She did callously say to would-be migrants and asylum seekers: “Do not come here.”
Shown is former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt (L) and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan (R). Reagan called Rios Montt “a man of great personal integrity.” In 2013, Rios Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.
One question I do have though is if a high school teacher taught our bloody, shameful history in this Central American nation would that be considered “Critical Race Theory”? (This is a topic I’ll dive more into in another column and newsletter.)
Dirty conservation, dirty tourism? The Oakland Institute just dropped a report: “The Looming Threat of Eviction: The Continued Displacement of the Maasai Under the Guise of Conservation in Ngorongoro Conservation Area.” It uncovers the Tanzania government’s plans to displace over 80,000 mostly Indigenous Maasai to placate the international conservation racket and tourism industry.
“The burden of proof is on the government and conservation agencies to concretely show how population growth among the Indigenous is leading to environmental deterioration ... Instead of prioritizing the views of international conservation agencies, it is imperative that the government properly engage the Maasai and grant them authority in the design of future plans for the NCA (Ngorongoro Conservation Area),” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.
Indigenous self-determination — there’s a thought.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to your feedback and suggestions. And most importantly, keep organizing!