This commentary is by Jeff Benay, a resident of Fairfax.
In the matter of the “Mascot Complaint Statement” (Equity organizations and lawmakers call on legislature to strengthen school district mascot law, March 21, VTDigger), as set forth by dozens of well-intentioned legislators and social/racial advocates, these individuals opine that future examination of Act 152 (Mascot Use in Public Schools) must include input and guidance from those qualified in “cultural humility” and history of impacted communities throughout the decision-making process.
They criticize the Agency of Education for allowing local school boards the opportunity to develop possible solutions themselves. In this scenario, school board members are uninformed and must be muzzled by state-imposed mandates that can be imposed by the “mascot experts.”
By removing all semblance of local decision-making control, the legislative intent is clear: Rely on the expertise of the highly educated and credentialed few who can impose their will onto the quasi-racist and doltish local citizens.
While the myopic legislative reasoning may remove the “heinous” mascots, there will be nothing offered to take away the bad taste left in the mouths of local stakeholders. The opportunity for open and honest dialogue will be shattered and communities will come to terms with the imposed wishes of the passionate elite who have absolutely no intent to engage the populace. We will have engaged in talking at one another, yet never talking with each other. Any chance to spark interest in community-building will have been sacrificed in favor of passing judgment on the local citizenry, thus keeping us in vastly divergent camps.
As individuals, we all hold beliefs that may at times be in conflict. While I may often be accused of holding biases, it is my contention we are all undergirded by presuppositions or underlying beliefs. I think these beliefs or values must be acknowledged if we are to understand one another.
So much of this country’s identity can be found in tenets of the individual’s self-interest. Yet, this ideology is tempered, in part, by older religious and political traditions that place the individual in relation to community. Thus, moral traditions exist that can foster a more just and humane individualism. Such a language allows us to think through ways to correct the excesses of modern individualism that promote social inequities in the name of individual rights.
Issues of individualism and social justice can be reconciled in public institutions that seek to nurture common standards of justice and civility. Citizenship and the commitment to a common good are grounded in moral traditions that respect the dignity of all people and reflect a concern for just distributions of goods and opportunities.
Thus, it is more expedient to build perceptions that explore multiple realities through conversations than to challenge the understanding of the social world as perceived by many Vermonters. If we can enter into dialogue as an entire educational community, we may build bridges through conflict resolution.
Instead of bringing in the experts of “cultural humility,” we may ask the Agency of Education to send in professional mediators who can work with local communities in arriving at mutually agreed upon solutions and decisions. If, after a prescribed amount of time, they cannot arrive at a just decision about mascots, they may then — and only then — bring in the so-called experts.
A participatory democracy requires no less than the opportunity for earnest dialogue to take place before imposing a top-down mandate. None of us want to see our children harmed by images of hate or misappropriated cultural imagery. How we arrive at just decisions about difficult subject matter will promote critical thinking.
Our challenge will be to encourage discussion, not stifle it. This is the paradigm we must embrace if our children are to live in a more humane society.
