Changing the Mascot Name, or Pulling Down the Statue: Who Gets to Decide?
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As the Great Frenzied Reckoning with our complicated past sweeps the nation, my little hometown of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California has found it is not immune to bitter controversy.
On Friday, the administrator of the Carmel High School Alumni Facebook group turned off comments on the page, as a battle over the proposed renaming of our alma mater’s mascot had turned vicious and cruel. It was a story familiar to anyone who has been on social media in the past five years: friends unfriended each other, family members turned against one another, and both those who wished to keep the mascot and those who wished to change it expressed outrage that those on the other side could not see the issue more clearly. There was lots of heat, and very little light.
I graduated from Carmel High in 1985. Since it opened in 1940, our mascot has been the “Padre.” This is a name that makes good regional sense; the campus sits just up the hill from Carmel Mission, where the founder of the entire California Mission system, St. Junipero Serra, lies buried. For 80 years, the name has honored the legacy of the padres who established the Roman Catholic Church in California. The yearbook is “El Padre,” and at sporting events, a student traditionally dresses in the costume of a Franciscan, cheering our teams on to victory.
When I was a student in the early 1980s, there was not a murmur of discontent about the name. Sensibilities have evolved; beginning in 2015, there has been a growing campaign led by current students, younger alumni, and some local Native American groups to change the name. These activists point to what they see as the genocide of California’s original inhabitants at the hands of the missionaries. Through one possible contemporary lens, Father Serra and his band of priests and brothers were mass murderers and colonizers, worthy of condemnation rather than celebration.
As the movement grew to change the name, alumni and community members, along with some current students, pushed back in defense of the Padre name. If you’ve had any sort of argument about culture and politics recently, I don’t need to tell you what’s unfolded online between the pro-Padre and anti-Padre camps. There’s been name-calling and invective. Those who want to keep the name are denounced as racist defenders of white supremacy; those who want change are dismissed as illiberal witch-hunters, the “Woke-O-Haram.”
A badly-worded survey has been sent out by the principal of the high school. You are only supposed to take the survey if you are a “stakeholder” in the Padre debate. Stakeholders include current students, alumni, parents of current or former students, current teachers and staff, former teachers and staff, and community members who reside within the district’s boundaries. Of course, as everyone in the Facebook thread pointed out, this is all on the honor system: a voter in Baton Rouge who has never been to California, but who has an ideological interest in the outcome, could simply claim to fall into one of the categories, and cast a vote.
The results of the survey will go to a study group appointed by the district, and will be a factor (but not the only factor) in their eventual recommendation to either change or keep the Padre name. No timetable has been established, but given how high emotions are running, we suspect it ought to be soon.
When it comes to renaming a school, taking down a statue, or otherwise revisiting the past, the first question to ask is, “Who gets to decide?” Establishing who is – and isn’t – a stakeholder in the decision is the first step in a fair process. This sounds easier than it is. In Carmel’s case, the survey assumes that the only stakeholders are those with direct ties to the high school: students, staff, alumni, parents, and locals. In the now-shuttered Facebook thread, many suggested that Native Americans – the descendants of those harmed by the “Padres” – should be considered stakeholders too. Some said sure – but which Native Americans? Descendants of the local tribes harmed by the church? Or Native Americans from across the country? Saint Serra may be interred in Carmel, but his controversial legacy had an impact across the West.
At this point, we’re moving ahead with the discernment process while still disagreeing about stakeholders.
Even once we define stakeholders, should everyone get an equal stake? Current student athletes play with the name “Padre” emblazoned on their uniforms. If some of them are troubled by that legacy, should their feelings have more weight than those who wore the red and gray of Carmel High 25, 35, or 50 years ago? Should the views of Native Americans whose ancestors suffered thanks to the mission system be given extra weight? Should the middle school kids, the future Carmel High students, be consulted as well?
Should we take a page from Edmund Burke, who claimed that the social contract is with the living, the dead, and the yet-to-be-born? Should we both consult our ancestors, and our hopes for our future grandchildren?
These are not esoteric questions. They go to the heart of how we best muddle through the Great Frenzied Reckoning. In one form or another, these questions apply to countless decisions that will be made in the years to come about what from our past can justly remain -- and what must be torn down.
A just and fair outcome can only come from a just and fair process. It cannot be imposed from above by the few – but it also cannot be the result of vandalism or intimidation by a mob, drunk on outrage and misplaced moral conviction. A just and fair outcome takes time, it takes discussion, and it requires a willingness to assume that those who see the issue differently are arguing in good faith.
My friends who want to change the name are not mindlessly enslaved to Woke Ideology. They think Carmel deserves a new name, one perhaps reflective of our spectacular natural heritage. (“Otters” and “Abalones” are among the suggestions.) They see in the retention of the Padre a refusal to come to terms with the devastation wrought by the mission system; they see reconciliation and healing made manifest in a changed name.
Perhaps they are right.
My friends who want to keep the name are not white supremacists, ignorant of the dark aspects of the past. They are deeply attached to tradition, and they believe that the legacy that the Padre mascot celebrates is more nuanced than those who want a change would have us believe. They see the modest, steadfast heroism of St. Serra and his compatriots as worthy of continued admiration.
Perhaps they are right.
It is not foolishness or gullibility to assume the best intentions of one’s opponents. It is not naïveté to imagine that most people mean well. To assume the best of others is a discipline, and it is a discipline hard to maintain on social media, where we are all seduced by the siren song of simple answers to hard questions. It is a discipline nonetheless essential to just processes and just outcomes. It is a discipline in tragically short supply in 2021.
A key to good process? Accepting the possibility that your view will not prevail, and the fact that it didn’t is not evidence of anyone else’s bad faith, bigotry, or dishonesty. If the process of deciding is transparent and open, the chance is always there that more folks will disagree with you than not. In a healthy debate, you not only assume that your opponents are arguing in good faith, you agree to accept the outcome of the process, even if you don’t like it.
I loved being a Padre. Though I was never a particularly popular boy, I felt at home in high school. I loved my classmates and my teachers, and I cheered on our teams. Out of deep devotion to what was, I voted to keep the name. My sentiment is my stake, but of course, it is only sentiment, no matter how deeply felt. Others have different feelings no more or less valid than my own. If, when all is said and done, the name is changed, I will accept it with good cheer. My memories will be no less sweet, and I shall comfort myself by imagining the relief and joy that those who despise the Padre mascot (but love the school) will feel.
I hope that if the name stays the same as the result of a vote of the stakeholders, those who wished to change it can find the strength to accept that outcome as well, without bitterness or acrimony.
What matters is not which statues go up, and which come down. What matters is not which name we wear across our chests when we go out to do battle for our schools. What matters is understanding why those statues went up, and why some now want to take them down. What matters is discerning why our forebears chose that mascot, and why some now might wish to change it. What matters, above all, is how we decide what goes and what stays, and how we do so while remaining convinced of the fundamental generosity and goodness of those who do not see the past, the present, or the future as we do.