I have made the petition because I recognize that Santa Rita Elementary School’s mascot, an American Indian, is racist. The use of American Indian’s in mascots is widely racist, as we’ve seen with sports team and such. Using American Indians as a mascot is racist because it conveys disrespectful and negative stereotypes against indigenous people, especially since this is a school with children ages around 5-11, who are easily influenced. This promotes children to think these stereotype are true and are okay to say or think.

Having an American Indian mascot is also racist because it is a form of discrimination. This limits the way younger kids see indigenous people and limits the way indigenous people see themselves. Kids need to learn that these people are more than just “red skin”, “teepees”, “headdresses”, etc. These items are important parts of indigenous people's culture and should not be appropriated for use by schools and sports teams. Indigenous people deserve respect and not to be treated as one dimensional characters for mass entertainment.  The mascots just continue to glorify their culture as some fun thing.

If we don’t change this mascot the young children attending this school will continue to think these racial stereotypes and imagery are okay and true. These kids should also learn WHY we need to change this. We need to teach these kids and prevent them from being subconsciously racist against indigenous people because of their mascot.

This petition is to show our community and school district that we would like to open the discussion for a new mascot. We understand that the school board needs to agree to the change and hope that they will understand why we are asking for it.