Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the party is always right.
Portland school fears 'Evergreens' mascot tied to lynching
Yes, trees CAN be racist. Like just about anything else.
After adopting a new namesake earlier this year, the Southwest Portland high school also wants to ditch its Trojan mascot. A committee comprised of students, staff and community members suggested the evergreens as the school's new mascot.
"Evergreens are characterized by the life-giving force of their foliage, the strength of their massive trunk, and the depth of their roots—in an individual tree and as a forest of trees", Ellen Whatmore, a teacher and mascot committee member at Wells-Barnett High School said, reading from a resolution. "They provide shelter and sustenance. They have histories that preclude us and will continue in perpetuity after we are no more".
But just before the Portland Public Schools Board of Education's vote to approve the new mascot Tuesday, March 30, Director Michelle DePass shared community concerns of an unwanted correlation between Ida B. Wells—the historic Black activist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who documented and crusaded against lynching—and a tree which could conjure up reminders of hanging people with ropes from branches.
"I'm wondering if there was any concern with the imagery there, in using a tree ... as our mascot?" DePass asked the renaming and mascot committee. "I think everyone comes with blind spots and I think that might've been a really big blind spot".
"We did talk about it, but we were looking at the symbolism more as a tree of life, than a tree of death", Osborne, who is African American, told the school board. "You could certainly take it either way, depending upon your position".
Osborne said the committee's idea of the evergreen "had nothing to do with the horrible history of lynching in the United States".
"Lynching tress typically are not evergreens", he added, saying deciduous trees with large, lower branches were typically used to hang Black people in the south.
After adopting a new namesake earlier this year, the Southwest Portland high school also wants to ditch its Trojan mascot. A committee comprised of students, staff and community members suggested the evergreens as the school's new mascot.
