Hart District’s Slap in the Face to Local Indians
So a friend of a friend got kicked off Facebook. Nothing new. The Politically Correct, like rust, sleep never. He belonged to a Facebook horticulture group and got yanked for calling a Wandering Jew a Wandering Jew. Perhaps he should have referred to this lovely potted plant as Tradescantia Pallida instead of the poetic handle used by everyone from Home Depot to Etsy.
But, no. Yet another tedious, wet-blanket social justice warrior with their lower lip preceding them by an hour found offense. Facebook’s goon demanded the purple hanging houseplant be referred to as a “Wandering Dude.” The mini-botanist refused. He was punted by the Plant Word Nazis.
Just another papercut, followed by another. And another. And another. I read somewhere that one rarely dies from a single slice. It takes at least a thousand. We’re well into the 900s. My beloved William S. Hart Union High School District announced they’re initiating Code Red Kabuki Theater. The suits are coyly padding about the public stage, fanning themselves and offering wooden giggles. I’ve a nose for subterfuge. They’re going to eradicate a perfectly wonderful, historic and noble mascot, the Hart High Indian.
One teacher, Greg Borish, wrote a letter to the board. His words: “When I talk with people outside our valley and our state, many are shocked, not in a good way, that we are still the Indians,” Borish wrote. “I feel ashamed that this is our mascot.” Funny coincidence?
Having read Greg’s letter, I feel ashamed he’s a teacher. Especially at my alma mater. Greg Borish is profoundly offensive to me. Is this now a one-way street? Is Borish the only one who gets to gasp and clutch his pearl necklace, fan himself coquettishly, filling the Santa Clarita skies with put-upon sighs? Teachers used to be politically neutral. They didn’t use their 2-unit community college class on Why Che Guevara Was A Really Cool Guy as a bully pulpit to indoctrinate the malleable minds of our children. Right. Left. You simply don’t do that. It’s ethically disgusting. It’s self-righteous. Pompous. Offensive. Dishonest. Communism? Multi wives? Push your sociopolitical comments back in your pie hole.
Does that mean Greg should change his name to something less offensive to me, like Corporal Tutu-Gertrude Weinerschnitzel, head of Hart’s prestigious Dancing Donkey Girl Scout Studies? No. Greg shouldn’t have to change his name. If he volunteered? Well. I’d hear him out. There’s a great background story on how the Indians became the beloved mascot of generations of students. It was in the mid-1940s. I’m going from memory, but I think the number was 17 students and parents who met to choose a mascot.
The school and district were named after one of the most influential people on the planet — the silent film star, William S. Hart. Hart created the modern cinema cowboy, a hero who embodied that there was Right and there was Wrong and you performed the former, no matter how difficult the task. That image still lives today worldwide as a definition of America, that we’re “cowboys” and see things in right and wrong. As a boy, Hart grew up with Native Americans and developed lifelong bonds and friendships. In 1941, Hart spoke at the grand opening of The American Theater in Newhall (which he helped build). On stage before the first movie (“The Earl of Puddleston”) he noticed a soldier (ours) in the audience. Hart thanked him for his service and noticed he was Indian. Hart asked from which tribe he hailed. When the corporal confessed he was full-blooded Lakota from the actor’s home of Montana, Bill Hart laughed. The two then chatted animatedly for an alarming 20 minutes — in Sioux.
That’s why Hart High has the Indian.
Not to humiliate him. Not to degrade him. Not to embarrass him. To honor him, to honor her.
Hart loved Native Americans. They were part of his life, a big piece of the puzzle of who he was. They were part of the nobility of man and human values that he broadcasted around the globe.
Do our teachers teach that? No. Why? Many are fundamentally dishonest and at best, ignorant.
If you change the Indian because some simpering imbecile is offended, then the Hart District will be tormented — I assure you — to eradicate each and every other local mascot.
Saugus Centurions? Talk about offensive. The Roman Empire raped, looted, tortured, crucified, murdered and enslaved millions. Double ditto with those ax-waving toxic male Vikings over at Valencia High. Cowboys? At Canyon? More toxic masculinity, plus, overt sexism. Change it to Cowgirls or Persons of Cow. Plus, Cowboys, are not, by nature, vegans. The Golden Valley Grizzlies? People don’t eat people. But bears do. Wildcats of West Ranch? Offensive to housecats. And lovers of jazz. Castaic Coyotes? Really? Naming your school mascot after murdering criminals who smuggle undocumented workers up from Mexico?
Do you see how ridiculous this train of thinking extends? Like Congress, the Hart district is idiotically ignoring the more important things needed to be done. If you think you’re getting an earful from the chanting and braindead SJWs, do grab a beach chair and wait for the oncoming tsunami from the other side, the one that lives here and signs recall petitions.
Many of us — not all — recall that heritage the school’s founding fathers created at the end of World War II. For some, whether you call your mascot the Fighting Nancy Pelosis or The Great Apes (one of my favorites), it doesn’t matter. Some have no fond memories of high school or the people in dental braces next to them. But, to thousands of Hart High Indian alums, it matters.
Passionately.
If the district craves long, senseless, terribly divisive battles — vive la guerre. Long live war. Ne pas faire de prisonniers. Take no prisoners. Vive le Puissant Indien.
Long Live the Mighty Indian…