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Homecoming, social media

Responses to Clintonville incident tainted by hubris

By Charles Collier


My alma mater took over local headlines last week, and I feel a certain call to comment on the controversy which has embroiled my hometown.

During a Homecoming dance-off last Thursday, a group of four students (with whom I am not familiar) mimicked a Native American powwow dance. All four students are white. A video of the dance was posted to social media. One commenter said they would head to Clintonville, “to do some scalping tonight” and the school went on lockdown.

The four students were given police escorts home and Clintonville School District administration cancelled all homecoming events, including the dance and football game.

The Oneida Nation condemned the dance and the district has in no uncertain terms accepted the scorn, vowing to increase diversity instruction and understanding among students and staff.

I hazard to say much on the topic as anything at all would seem to put me into one of two extremist camps. Either “those students are heartless, racist monsters!” or “this is political-correctness run amok and nobody should care about it at all!”

But beyond the false hubris that social media has tainted us with, reality – as it always has been – is mired in nuance.

First, from the video at the center of the controversy, I struggle to find anything that would suggest the students were trying to minimize Native peoples. To say they “mimicked” a Native dance is merely a result of limited vocabulary. Having been to powwows before and enjoying the cultural differences of Native peoples, my personal interpretation is that they were trying to re-create group dances without having extensive training or knowledge of the steps.

There was no hand-to-mouth sound effects, no tomahawk chops, and nothing that overtly caricatured Native culture in an unflattering light.

This isn’t a defense of all Native subjugation in the broader culture. In fact, I wore black on Monday in observance of Columbus Day to reflect on the tragedies rather than lionize the conquests that followed Christopher’s landing in the Western Hemisphere 730-some years ago.

It is, however, a call for all of us to become reacquainted with the forces of reality and to treat people as people and not as digital punching bags. Looking back on my own time at Clintonville High, especially during Homecoming, makes me exceedingly glad that smartphones and social media were new and barely utilized tools.

All four years, I was part of my class’ comedy troupe that put together skits for the Homecoming pep rally. No matter the opponent, the goal was always to make their mascot as ridiculous as possible en route to being plowed over by the Trucker mascot.

It was Homecoming, after all.

I always played the opponent’s mascot and did everything I could to push the envelope, hoping to gain enough laughs – often through shock – to push our skit over the edge to help the class get the most points of all the Homecoming festivities.

Compared to last Thursday’s hullabaloo (the Truckers were scheduled to face the Fox Valley Lutheran Foxes), I am almost insulted that my efforts never garnered anything that could be construed as a “death threat.”

My senior year, 2009, we were playing the Freedom Irish. What was my rendition of an Irishman? It was wearing a green chiffon skirt (well north of the knees), a far-too-small green leather jacket (with no shirt underneath), and a fuzzy green bucket hat, introduced as ‘Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women’ blared intentionally way-too-loud over the speakers. Eventually, I was knocked out by the Trucker and drug unconsciously across the gym floor as suitable human refuse.

I still have scars on my torso from the floor burn.

Much of Clintonville’s heritage was at the time, incidentally, Irish, but we received no death threats. In fact, we had the largest ovation of all – which we were accustomed to as an exceptional group of improvisers and comedians. I’m glad that there’s no permanent recording, not because I’d be embarrassed of the proceedings, but because the format was made to be immediately consumed and ultimately forgotten.

Social media robs us of much, and impermanence is among the most sacred aspects now fleeing our lives. Obviously, there are huge differences between Native peoples and Irish, or German, or what-have-you given that ethnic cleansing has not beleaguered European peoples on the American continent.

But if four boys, in a Homecoming dance-off when their opponent is not one of the contested Native mascots across the state, re-create a powwow dance to a legitimate powwow song are to be tossed aside as miscreants; if they are the representatives of an oppressive power structure; if their misdeeds are powerful enough to warrant such a drastic public relations response, then all meaningful discussion on the topic is weakened.

If that dance cannot be instantly forgotten, what then is worth remembering?

Sports, especially in high school, are at their core about building group loyalty and emphasizing teamwork to overcome
obstacles from an outside intruder. It’s high time we understand that social media is an enemy of our ability to reason.

Charles Collier is a 2010 graduate of Clintonville High School and current editor of The Denmark News.

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