By Elliott Donald
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Last week I watched the Acton Boxborough Regional School District School Committee’s chair read a statement on the issue of the Colonial. Near its end, she included an email that I had submitted immediately following the 15 October meeting communicating a change in my position on the Colonial from favoring retention to “convinced that its retirement was the right thing for the school.” The chair closed her statement with an assertion that the committee would not be reconsidering its vote and added a postscript that she hoped “that is the last we have to say about the Colonial.”
In late September, I learned that ABSEJ had petitioned the School Committee to retire the Colonial as the mascot because of the racism the group felt it symbolized and of the School Committee’s solicitation for community comment of the 25th of September. Stunned by an effort to connect the Colonial that I had always felt to be a fine representative of the town, while no longer a member of “the community,” I set to work on a letter to refute the idea that the Colonial was a symbol of racism or of colonialism. I contended rather that the Colonial hearkened specifically to 37 residents of Acton who, on April 19, 1775, left behind the safety of their homes to join a fight against the best trained army of the day and that the “action they took was the best way they knew how to improve their own condition and make a better life for themselves, their families, and their community.”
I submitted that letter on 5 October. Given rumors that the Committee had already made up its mind on the issue, I remembered thinking that among the most difficult things to do in the world is to admit that one’s initial position is wrong. I awaited the Zoom Meeting of 15 October, hopeful that many letters of a tone similar to mine would be persuasive in favor of the Colonial. As I watched the meeting, I saw a civil exchange of ideas but it became apparent that the community’s input had not been favorably persuasive. Though my sense of what the Colonial stands for had not (and has not) changed, the letters that had been submitted, as represented by the School Committee, seemed to reflect a hateful tone surrounding the Colonial and impressed upon me a sense that the Colonial that I knew did not represent the town and thus should be retired. That evening I emailed the committee reflecting this sentiment.
In the weeks that followed, I looked for confirmation that my revised position was correct. I listened for the hateful tone I understood that the community’s written comment had carried at subsequent School Committee meetings. While I heard one commentator’s remarks indicating that a deliberate months-long process had been employed to change the R.J. Grey mascot in the 90s, and I heard much of the town’s history that echoed my 5 October letter’s sentiment, I did not hear the tone that had inspired my 15 October email.
When the letters that had been submitted attendant the School Committee’s 25 September solicitation were released, I joined a group of school district citizens who divided them up to look for indicators that reflected the racism of the town. I read over a hundred of them. To confirm the Committee’s 7 January statement, there were a good number of “retain” emails that were of the nature of a subject line that read “Keep Mascot.” There seemed to be as many of the “retire” emails whose content (while more than a subject line) seemed to be a “copy-paste” of a statement describing the Colonial’s perceived wrongs. Supporting the Colonial there were many who saw the nobility of the Colonial. Opposing the Colonial were many who saw the colonialism they understood it to represent. To be sure, among the 700 letters, reviewers noted a scarce number of examples that one might interpret as racist. The strongest indication of racism that I saw came in an Instagram screen capture that a “retire” supporter had forwarded to the committee, the origin of which was not made known.
The evolution of my own position (I’m sure some would call it flip-flopping) on the Colonial reinforced for me of the importance of taking the time to thoroughly research a problem before arriving at a conclusion. In the months that followed the 15 October meeting, I came to know that I had prematurely convicted the town for a bigoted tone that on further examination, generally wasn’t there. I felt chagrined by my hastily written email’s inclusion in the School Committee’s statement. I was disturbed that my words had been used to support the Colonial’s retirement, but more disturbed that they had been used to reinforce the idea that we should hear the last of the Colonial. The division in the town is apparent. If the students are to decide the Colonial’s fate, as many submissions supported, then let them. If not, let adults do so. However the decision is made, let us discuss the topic as a community, inclusive of all concerned, and in a forum that permits more than a series of three minute one way transmissions conducted biweekly. Let us take the time to have a discussion that enables understanding on both sides of the issue and as we do, let us all be open to the idea that our initial position might be wrong.
Thank you.
Elliott Donald
ABRHS ‘89
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Thank you Elliot, this sums up the evolution of my train of thought as well. The eagerness with which members of the School Committee and the Select Board have gobbled up the notion that a member of our community wrote those hateful comments in the Zoom shows me that they desperately needed that to be true to prove their case about retiring the Mascot. I should note that I do not feel very strongly about our mascot – however, teenagers are fickle beasts. As a resident of this town since 1989, I do question any group of people, elected or otherwise, that will not acknowledge that a critical lack of Jurisprudence and PATIENCE is injurious to the integrity of these town groups or boards. Patience when changing the mascot and patience when investigating the nexus of these attacks is of equal importance. Without DUE PROCESS, the School Committee and some Acton citizens charged and convicted this town of a crime and all of its members and used this incorrect assertion to validate their agendas. I ask the School Committee and certain members of the Select Board to reconsider their hasty and eager conclusions in the name of IMPARTIALITY and INTEGRITY.
Elliott, you are far too generous with these COWARDS…
The School Committee acted in a cowardly manner, – catering to the mob in the street – by secretly voting to kill the Colonial.
They acted in sheer ignorance, – most not knowing anything about our Colonial History. How many know who Crispus Attucks was – and how, when, or why he died? Crispus was a COLONIAL!
As for letting the students decide the fate of the ‘mascot’, it would be fine, ~ IF ~ the students KNEW and understood our Colonial History. But they don’t.
They’ve been deliberately and carefully miseducated by our highly-paid UNION TEACHERS. As a result, most graduating seniors can’t tell you who the belligerent powers in WWI were – or which sides they were on, or how the war ended.
You – and all adults in Acton need to ask: WHO BENEFITS by killing off American History – in the name of “Wokeness”?
With WHAT do these people propose to replace the memory of American Patriotism?
And WHY is the School Committee so easily manipulated? The voters need to find more patriotic and better educated candidates for office.
/s/ Iron Mike
Old Soldier, – Still Good for Parts!
https://rabidrepublicanblog.com/acton-boxborough-moms-ignorant-cowards/