(AK) Ketchikan pep club apologizes after students dressed as cowboys for a basketball game
against Metlakatla, Alaska’s only Native reserve
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2022/02/11/ketchikan-pep-club-apologizes-after-students-dressed-as-cowboys-for-a-basketball-game-against-metlakatla-alaskas-only-native-reserve/
Members of Ketchikan High School’s pep club apologized for “cultural insensitivity” after dressing up as cowboys for a high school boys basketball game against Metlakatla last weekend.
The pep club’s decision to dress in a “country” theme for Saturday’s game in Ketchikan was widely seen as an affront to players and parents from Metlakatla, an Indigenous community in Southeast Alaska that is the state’s only Native American reserve.
Metlakatla Indian Community Mayor Albert Smith, in a letter to the Ketchikan schools superintendent Wednesday, called the pep theme “hurtful and emotionally violent” — recalling a time when, 77 years ago, signs in Ketchikan storefronts read “No dogs or Natives allowed.”
The outfits and other actions “created a racially charged environment directed towards our Metlakatla players, the majority of whom are of Native Alaskan (Tsimshian) descent,” Taw Lindsey, superintendent of Annette Island School District, wrote in a letter to the Metlakatla and Ketchikan communities on Thursday. Metlakatla High School is part of the district.
(Excerpt)
