The former J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church has jettisoned the name of the old Civil War hero in favor of a new name: Justice High School, reports the Washington Post. The name change will cost about $428,000 to replace fixtures, equipment and clothing with a new name and logo. Donors have contributed $91,000 so far.
As part of its new image, Justice High School has adopted the wolf as its new school mascot. Just wondering: Isn’t that problematic?
The rapacious patriarchal/specie-ist/capitalist system of the United States has displaced wolves from their natural habitat across most of the continent, just as it displaced and subjugated native Indians. Who are the residents of Falls Church to adopt the wolf as a mascot? Isn’t that the inter-species equivalent to cultural appropriation? Aren’t Falls Churchers stereotyping the wolf as a violent, bloodthirsty creature and drawing a moral equivalence between the valuable ecological function performed by alpha predators (culling the herd) and the mindless violence of football and other school sports? I, for one, am deeply troubled by the insensitivity on display.
The choice of wolf as school mascot is all the more discouraging when there is such an obvious alternative that would highlight the crusading spirit of progressives and other correct-thinking Falls Church citizens: the Social Justice Warriors.
