RETIRE THE ‘RAIDERS?’
RADNOR MAY NIX NATIVEAMERICAN SCHOOL NICKNAME
RADNOR » The Radnor School Board and Superintendent Kenneth E. Batchelor have called a special meeting Aug. 4 to listen to the community debate the use of “Raiders” as a Radnor High School nickname and mascot going forward.
The meeting comes in the wake of pressure applied by various activists including the student-led Radnor For Reform (https://www.instagram.com/radnorforreform/) initiative dedicated to “removing any cultural references from the Radnor mascot with the goal of fostering an inclusive environment.”
It also comes as national teams like the Washington football franchise decided to retire its “Redskins” nickname and logo and the Cleveland Indians baseball team mulls a similar action.
In Radnor the movement is led by seniors Audrey Margolies and Anne Griffin, and junior Ellie Davis, the student representative to the government relations and communications committee to the school board. Radnor For Reform can see light at the end of the tunnel after a fight that began long before the civil rights demonstrations rocking the country.
“The public action of setting that special meeting shows that the school board has been wonderfully receptive to hearing the voices of students,” Davis said. “We’re all very grateful that we live in a district where we feel like the school board values the opinions of its students even in a chaotic time like we’re in now.”
Community members also have weighed in, including Radnor resident Maya K. van Rossum. In a recent letter to the editor at the Delaware County Daily Times, she suggested the school district brought the Native American imagery back after banning it in 2013.
“The Indian head mascot was retired, the picture taken off of the gym, a new name was being selected, and Radnor was on a path of being decent and respectful towards the Native American people and culture who have so long been mistreated by white culture,” van Rossum claimed in the letter. “It is now clear that you have reversed course and returned to the offensive imagery and language. The Indian head is back on the gym, the use of Indian feathers and other imagery are painted on school buildings, found on scoreboards, and are all over Senior 2020 signs, and the ‘Raider’ name is back. And now the Township has supported this hateful bigotry by adding formal road signage locking in ‘Raider Road’ as the official name of the street leading to the high school.”
There is no disputing the Indian head on an outside wall of the gym facing the football field.
The Radnor football helmets have a feathered decal.
The Radnor gym floor was repainted, an Indian head logo at the center jump gone. What remains is an “R” with feathery imagery attached.
It made enough people uncomfortable that it sure looks like there will be changes. The Radnor School Board directed would-be participants in the Aug. 4 Zoom and YouTube information-gathering meeting to history links, including a joint statement by students, district teachers and administrators from 2013.
At that time Radnor said it formally decided “to officially retire the school’s physical, costumed mascot with members of the school board’s policy committee at its June 18 meeting. The nickname “Radnor Raiders” and logos such as the “R” in a circle with feathers and the signage at Prevost Field will remain.”
The actions didn’t go far enough, judging by the latest reaction that Davis denies is part of the cancel culture mania sweeping the country.
“We’ve gotten comments and we’ve gotten hate mail saying we’re just people on the Main Line who want to feel empowered about something,” Davis said. “We don’t want to erase Radnor’s history whatsoever. We’re not trying to forget that Radnor has this mascot. We want to recognize the history of the mascot and why we chose to change it. One of the ideas is to have a physical display in the high school of all Radnor mascots and memorabilia. Then we can explain why Radnor chose to change the mascot through education and then we can explain how we’ve grown as a community. So, we’re not trying to cancel the mascot and forget it ever existed. We want to evolve and grow as a community and then recognize the past mistakes that we’ve made.”
If it sounds like the Radnor For Reform brain trust is optimistic, that’s because the rapidly expanding group is. The movement has ballooned to almost 400 in a short time. Students, teachers and alumni are among the fol
lowers. Debates in the comments section in some cases became so heated they became personal attacks, requiring monitoring, according to Davis.
Davis said Radnor For Reform has been chipping away at a potential mascot change for over a year – well before the Washington Redskins recently were told by billion-dollar corporate sponsors like Fed-Ex, Nike and Pepsi to get rid of the Native American nickname or else.
“Every day we walk through the halls of the high school and we see the words ‘respect’ on the walls,” Davis said. “We see posters that say, ‘no place for hate.’ Every day we also see pictures of this Native American head and we see the feathers. We feel embarrassed and ashamed as students. We’re embarrassed that we go to a school that is so unaware and insensitive that they did not change the mascot and we’re ashamed of ourselves because we haven’t been able to do anything about it.
“One of the misinterpretations of our organization
is, I’m a Radnor athlete. I play basketball, I do crew. I have Radnor pride. But because we can’t do that without also promoting a racist image, we feel embarrassed and we’re not able to show our pride.”
Margolies also is an athlete, participating in crew and using her platform as a student.
“Native American mascots are dangerous and defamatory,” Margolies said in a statement. “They disparage the very group supporters claim to honor. The Native American mascot and its associated imagery have no place in our school or our community.”
Griffin, editor of the school news service, the Radnorite, says the Native American imagery “subconsciously teaches Radnor students that it is acceptable to reduce centuries of culture and tradition to a high school football logo.”
Davis, the assistant editor of the Radnorite, said Radnor For Reform wouldn’t endorse a specific mascot but from the ideas circulating out there the “Radnor Red Tails” is popular.
“We think that choosing a new mascot could be a really bonding experience for the community,” Davis said. “It doesn’t have to create
more polarization. We want to come together and hear from the students as to what they want to change it to.”
All of that said, the special meeting with the school board cannot come soon enough for Davis. The school board letter cosigned by superintendent Batchelor and board president Susan Stern indicated the group would reveal the “next steps” in the process at the conclusion of the meeting.
Davis crossed.
“We sort of feel like the stars just aligned on this,” Davis said. “People are accusing of us of just trying to ride a wave of racial injustice and outcry of the nation. But this movement started, we’ve had meetings with the school board throughout the past year. When we were in quarantine we were quietly working behind the scenes. But when the greater movement, the demand for racial justice started happening in the country and then with the Redskins changing their name, looking at this, we couldn’t help but see that this was the best opportunity for something to change. This is the time to act.”
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