jon caldara
Kill the redskins!
Remember the scene from Charlton Heston’s “The 10 Commandments” where Pharaoh orders that Moses’ name be removed from the history books? The state of Colorado is now pharaoh. So let it be written, let it be done.
Arvada High School has been around for over 100 years and is one of the oldest high schools in Colorado. Its physical location has changed as the city has grown, but since 1920 it has been a source of pride for many students, faculty, and graduates.
Their mascot’s traditional name, “the Redskins,” was abandoned in 1993 in favor of the more politically correct (and perhaps more metaphorically accurate) “Reds.” A few years later, “Reds” was changed to the criminally timid “Bulldogs.” But with current discrimination against pit bulls, including cities banning them, that name may also be offensive to a future generation.
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But this is not the story of a school that adopted an offensive mascot name. This is the history of the State that demands that history be expunged from the records.
Arvada High has what it calls its “museum.” It’s not really a museum. It is primarily a large trophy case with artifacts from the school’s history, including the original gatehouse of the first high school. Items in the exhibit were gifted by past generations of graduates. It even contains a history booklet that tells the story of your pet.
After the school building was completed in 1922, vocational agriculture and welding teacher Thomas D. Vanderhoof built the football field and formed a team. A student at the time said: “The dye from the red football shirts stained our skin. “A young girl noticed this and told Coach Van that we looked like the Redskins.”
A pet was born.
Although another collection of history says that the Native Americans in the area liked the new name, as long as the football team “always fought fairly,” it was obviously born out of pure hatred and racism.
Given that for three-quarters of its existence, everything at Arvada High School was adorned with Indian-themed emblems and words, such as the school newspaper, “The Redskin Arrow,” it is no surprise that three-quarters of its museum’s contents are adorned with those emblems. and words.
So, in old-fashioned book burning fashion, it looks like most of the 100-year-old museum’s contents will be removed.
School administrators can certainly be blamed for whitewashing the story. (Look, look what I did there: whitewash.) But they give the excuse that every educator and concentration camp guard uses: We’re just following orders.
Just as the communists in Russia had to change the name of Stalingrad to Leningrad, the communists in the Colorado state legislature just have to rewrite history.
In 2021, the governor signed Senate Bill 116, which made it illegal to name public schools and mascots after Indians or face a fine of $25,000 a month. The Indian Affairs Commission had the privilege of deciding what we should consider offensive.
So it’s a good thing Arvada High dropped its Redskins nickname in 1993. Right?
Last October, the Jefferson County School District received a love letter from the Colorado Indian Affairs Commission, notifying them that they voted to put Arvada High on their hit list for a mascot they hadn’t had in three decades.
(How cool is it that this commission has the word “Indian” and yet goes around ordering people to ban the word “Indian”?)
They informed Jeffco: “The ‘use’ of a prohibited American Indian mascot may include, but is not limited to, the display or representation of such mascot by a school on its grounds, physical buildings, letterhead, websites, tangible property or equipment, even if the banned American Indian mascot no longer serves as the school’s official mascot.”
Funny, I can’t find anything about that last part in Senate Bill 116.
Therefore, Arvada High’s historical articles and all the lessons about racism they teach will likely disappear.
And this revisionism does not only occur in schools. It’s in a city park, where SB-116 doesn’t apply, only identity politics applies.
Years ago, alumni paid for a rock with a large metal plaque honoring the site of the original Arvada High School. But he was tainted with the Redskins nickname. The rock is still there. The large metal plate has been torn off. I’m told it’s in the Arvada city manager’s office.
Forget school pride. Sterilizing history condemns young people to repeat it. Good job, guys.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.
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