Another The Playwickian Take: Neshaminy Mascot is an Offensive Vestige

Donations go to support our crew in filming the final hearing to determine the Neshaminy R — — mascot as well as Donna Fann-Boyle’s struggle to remove it. Make a pledge here to support this independent project and ensure that this story be told.

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Jackson Haines, Washington, DC

Every so often it gets brought up. The reaction, regardless of the listener, is usually pretty similar.

“That’s crazy!”

“Wow, that’s really behind the times.”

“I can’t believe that’s still a thing.”

The it I refer to is the mascot of my alma mater Neshaminy High School, the ‘R — — — ,’ of Washington infamy, and the long struggle that my fellow school newspaper editors and I endured in our attempts to challenge its standing in our school.

I am sure many of you reading this are familiar with the story. For those who are not, I will try to put into a few sentences what weighed over my conscience — and the collective conscience of an entire newspaper staff — for a few years. In October of 2013, Donna Boyle, a Native-American member of our community, went to the school board to argue what to some may seem obvious: the R — — — mascot is racist. She told the board that her son took issue with the mascot’s ubiquitous presence throughout the school, that the posters, t-shirts, and artwork displaying stereotypical Native Americans coupled with that dirty word were a hindrance to his education and a threat to his well-being.

Her case is sound: the American Psychological Association has determined that mascots depicting Indigenous peoples can be psychologically detrimental to Native American students.

We at The Playwickian, the school newspaper of Neshaminy High School, agreed with her and voted to ban the word from our pages. Though the explanatory unsigned editorial we published did not urge the school district to change the mascot, it made our stance clear: “The word [‘R — — — ‘] is racist… it is not a term of honor, but a term of hate.”

In adopting this policy, we hoped to start a conversation, one that Neshaminy desperately needed to have. However, our critics — and there were many — did not see the conversation as necessary, worse, some saw it as an attack on the school itself. School officials actively tried to force us to publish the word over the course of the next school year, but they failed.

Now, I don’t often tell my friends at American University this story. For one, it’s long, so long the above summary still doesn’t do it justice. But when I do tell them, it reminds me of just how out of touch the Neshaminy community is on this issue. Outsiders of the school district, like my college friends, see the mascot as an offensive vestige of a different era.

More importantly, it reminds me that the problem that gave me this experience is still just that: a problem. Neshaminy’s mascot is still a slur. And while an ongoing court battle started by Donna Fann-Boyle could very well change that, there is yet a larger problem: even if Neshaminy’s mascot changes there will still be dozens of other high schools across the nation with disparaging mascots. That’s why I’m writing this: because there is now an effort to make a documentary film chronicling the racist mascot at Neshaminy and the efforts to fight it, and I believe that the making of this film will help incite change not only at Neshaminy, but across the country. Because even if this film in its most literal sense is about Neshaminy’s mascot and the people who fought to bring about its end, it is ultimately a film about respect, and giving that respect to an entire group of people. That message is far-reaching.

Social change is rarely made in one fell swoop. Rather, we often see justice achieved as the result of countless actions by ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things. Donna Boyle did an extraordinary thing at Neshaminy, and she inspired the Playwickian staff to see the best in themselves. Hopefully this film can inspire countless other viewers to be the change makers, the pieces of the mosaic that is this movement. Then, justice can be achieved.

That is why I ask you to contribute, because this film, in need of funding, is not just a documentary; it also has the potential to be an agent of change, and in donating, so do you.

Jackson Haines is a rising sophomore at American University in Washington, DC, where he studies political science, as well as communications. While at Neshaminy, Haines served as the Op-Ed Editor of The Playwickian for two years, before serving as its managing editor during his senior year. He played a key role in the decision of the staff to ban “The R-Word.”