Let the Massapequa Chiefs keep their name
Memo to the stick-in-the-mud Karens at the State Education Department: Let Massapequa High School keep on being the 'Chiefs.'
As even many Native Americans insist.
The Long Island school is fighting to keep its team name and logo after the state Board of Regents ordered schools to scrap symbols that referenced Native Americans — or risk losing state funding.
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Massapequa sued, along with the nearby Wantagh Warriors and Wyandanch Warriors, but a judge threw out their case.
Look, the school's mascot isn't meant to mock Native Americans; it's meant to honor the heritage of Massapequa, a town that's named after one of Long Island's original 13 tribes.
In response to local opposition, an SED flack arrogantly told Massapequa to 'talk to the Indigenous people' on Long Island, presuming they were offended by moniker.
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The SED should take its own advice. Local Native Americans are offended, all right — not by the school name, but by the state's bullying the town into scrubbing it.
Former Massapequa student Laura Albanese-Christopher, of Cherokee descent, slammed the name change as 'off the charts hurtful and disrespectful.'
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe member David Finkenbinder called it 'frustrating': 'This takes the interest away from students to learn why their towns and teams are named this way.'
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The 'representation matters' left can't understand why Native Americans would support schools proudly and respectfully using symbols of their community.
President Donald Trump, too, has thrown his support behind the Chiefs name, asking Secretary of Education Linda McMahon 'to fight' on Massapequa's behalf.
Rebranding would cost the district a pretty penny — an estimated $1 million — but locals are more peeved because they see SED's ban as an attempt to erase the town's proud Indigenous roots.
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Turns out the woke stuffed shirts at SED, all of whom have probably been sensitivity trained within an inch of their lives, aren't very sensitive to the real-life concerns of the people they're supposedly advocating for.
The only way the Chiefs will get to keep their name is if SED rescinds its ban; maybe some pressure from the Trump administration will encourage that.
But New York schools certainly shouldn't be forced to ditch their beloved team symbols.
The we-know-best lefties at SED got this one massively wrong.
Go Chiefs!
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