Screenshot Credit: Change.org
TOMS RIVER, N.J. – Cancel culture is crashing on the Toms River mainland this week as locals battle over whether to scrap the Toms River Regional School District’s Indian-themed mascots.
The Toms River High School’s mascot is the “Fighting Indian”; Toms River Intermediate School South students are nicknamed the “Seminoles” and Washington Street Elementary’s students are the “Warriors.”
–
“Toms River, New Jersey has been sending the wrong message to students, staff, and the broader community for generations through the use of these misleading and insulting stereotypes,” reads the anti-mascot petition at Change.org. “Our students deserve better than being subjected to rallying around normalized racism and white supremacy. It’s time we admit that race is not a mascot, and that the glorified depiction of a “Fighting Indian” is a dangerous whitewashing of history.”
“Old Indian Tom has been our mascot for many years and that tradition should NOT be changed. Never was he a target for racism towards the Native Americans,” the counter-petition’s author explained. “He is a symbol of America, the first people that were here before the pirate Christopher Columbus turned them all into slaves. The Indian is a representative of everything good in our country. He’s the best representative of our school, and I am not going to sit idly by and let him be destroyed by people who have taken the Anti-racist agenda way too far. It’s time we start fighting back. Keep the pride in the school and keep the mascot. He’s not just for entertainment, he represents something greater.”
The petition to ditch the Indian-themed name had nearly 900 signatures as of early Thursday afternoon.
The counter-petition was pushing 500.
The Ocean County community of Toms River is New Jersey’s 8th most populous town.
–
