Replacing Native American mascot is big test for this Pierce County school district

Prohibiting the use of Native American mascots, logos and team names in Washington public schools is no longer a question of “if.” It’s not even a question of “when.” The Legislature is on track this year to correct decades of cultural appropriation and insensitivity with strong bipartisan support.

At this point the main questions center on how swiftly and gracefully school districts will respond to the order, and whether they can minimize collateral damage to alumni relations.

Take Bethel School District, for example. Finding an alternative to the Bethel High School Braves will be a big test for the Spanaway-based district. Officials have much work ahead, and early signs indicate they may not allow enough time to get it right.

With the COVID-19 pandemic still active and high school graduation around the corner, the Bethel School Board and Superintendent Tom Seigel agreed Tuesday not to form a mascot-replacement committee until next fall.

That sounds dicey. If we learned anything from this year’s renaming of Wilson High School in Tacoma, it’s that leaders should start early, collect lots of input and brace for intense blowback from traditionalists.

The Bethel Braves are one of two Native mascots in Pierce County — the other is the Clover Park High School Warriors —and together stand among 31 Washington schools still using real or imagined Native names.

The Bethel School Board met Tuesday to begin preparing for their post-Braves destiny. House Bill 1356 sailed through the House last week with a 92-5 vote, so it’s a shoo-in to win approval from the Senate and Gov. Jay Inslee.

Can Bethel wait until a new high school approved by bond voters opens in 2025, as some would prefer? Nope. With narrow exceptions, the legislation requires dropping Native American symbols and names by Jan. 1, 2022.

District leaders know it will be hard to appease alumni and other stakeholders. “They can groan all they want; we don’t have a choice,” said board member Brenda Rogers, adding that “the Braves is a big deal for a lot of old people out in this community.”

It’s a big deal for younger people, too, including those now wearing Braves logos on helmets and jerseys. Students grew up surrounded by totems and traditions of school culture. For years they’ve walked under a painting of a Bethel Brave on horseback hanging in a main school stairwell and walked past a larger-than-life carving in the gym entryway.

But youth also tend to be clear-eyed about historical offenses to people of color and indigenous people groups, and more aware of the need to let these groups tell their own stories.

It’s wise that School Board members want to give students a leading role in selecting a new mascot. They’d be wiser still to start immediately.

It can take months to conduct surveys and focus groups, as Tacoma’s Wilson High name-change advocates can attest. It will take even longer if leaders decide to try using an exception in the new law: seeking the blessing of a neighboring tribe — probably the Nisquallys or Puyallups — to keep the school’s Braves heritage.

Most Bethel officials agreed Tuesday that a mascot change is the right thing to do regardless of legislative mandate (though they’re happy to let legislators give them cover).

“Frankly if the law doesn’t pass, we should probably do it anyway,” Seigel said. “We’re at the point in the history of this country where we have to be sensitive to this stuff. Bethel High is still Bethel High. It’s an important statement about who we are and what we’re about.”

Indeed, shedding Native mascots shows respect for Washington’s 29 federally recognized tribes; it also begins to make amends for white society’s long history of co-opting and commercializing Native symbols and regalia.

Bethel has taken baby steps in the right direction. Years ago it replaced a giant Plains Indian warrior’s head at gym centercourt, painted by a local artist in the early 1990s, with a simple letter “B.” It also eliminated the term “powwow” for homecoming festivities.

Now it’s time to go all the way. It can set a shining example for other Washington school districts by quickly engaging the community in a mascot transition. It should happen soon after Inslee signs this legislation, if not sooner.

This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 2:30 PM.