There’s a lot of news going around nowadays surrounding the events involving racism.
However a couple people on Facebook have set up opposite Change.org petitions towards one Upper Peninsula school on whether if they should rename their mascot from ‘Eskymo’ to something else. Like this one down below.
And that school is in Escanaba, in south-central Upper Peninsula—for which they are known as the Escanaba Eskymos.
For those who don’t know, an ‘Eskimo’ is a name given to indigenous individuals who live up in the Northern polar regions, such as Northern Canada, Alaska, and Greenland.
And for a lot of people, the term is deemed ‘offensive.’ They find them that way because of its definition meaning ‘eaters of raw meat’ in Algonquian language.
One petition which is set up by Allison Orzel, is close to their 500 signature goal at 435 for wanting to removed as soon as possible.
“It’s time for us to come up with a more appropriate symbol for representing our city’s high school,” Orzel said. “For as long as we can remember, ‘Mo’ has been a symbol of pride in our city, however, we would like for your official stance on our use of your culture to represent our city’s high school.”
However, there is another petition set up by Joyce Lewis countering the mascot name removal. Lewis said in its story that the mascot was named from the Hilltoppers to Eskymos from a 1911 silent move, ‘Way of an Eskimo’ starring Nancy Columbia.
“The cast was all indigenous people. Everyone in town thought Nancy was beautiful and kind. It was thought that our mascot, the Eskymo, was based on this beautiful ‘eskimo’ woman,” Lewis said. “Mo has been our mascot for almost 100 years. We need to keep Mo for 100 more.”
The petition from is Lewis now up to over 1,600 signatures as part of the goal of 2,500.
If you want know more about both sides of events, went to school there, or just like to sign either petition, click on both Allison and Joyce’s names for the links.
