Why the Warrior logo vote still matters
By now, you’ve probably heard that the School Committee voted on March 23 to eliminate the Wakefield Warrior logo.
You may have inferred from that 5-2 vote that the issue is settled and the April 27 Town Election vote on the Warrior logo ballot question is now moot.
That’s exactly what the School Committee wants you to think. It’s the main reason they voted when they did – to make you believe the April 27 ballot question no longer matters. That, and to show their utter disdain for the process. They alone know best. The voters be damned.
As much as it was a vote to eliminate the logo, the March 23 School Committee vote was also an effort to depress the pro-Warrior turnout on April 27.
If their ploy works, they can then claim vindication and say that the voters backed their decision at the polls. As cynical and calculating as that sounds, it’s exactly how they think.
But even as the anti-logo side is hoping you’ll conclude that it’s a done deal and you don’t need to show up and vote, their own actions tell a very different story. The anti-logo forces are going to great lengths to make sure that their own people get out on April 27 and vote to “retire” the logo.
They are putting an awful lot of time, money and effort toward influencing a vote on an issue that they’d like you to believe is a done deal, a fait accompli, a moot point.
Why are they doing all this? Because they know the April 27 vote on the Warrior logo ballot question still matters. A lot.
If it doesn’t matter, why did they go to the trouble of organizing a “Vote No” campaign committee?
If it doesn’t matter, why are they raising money through national political action committee “ActBlue” to defeat a local grassroots effort to save the Warrior?
If it’s a done deal, what’s the point of all those “Vote No” signs?
If the April 27 vote doesn’t matter, why bother creating a web site and Facebook page urging people to vote “no” on April 27?
If it doesn’t matter, what’s the purpose of those copycat rallies and standouts every Saturday?
If it doesn’t matter, why have scores of “Save the Warrior” lawn signs been stolen from people’s yards?
If it’s a done deal, what was the point of holding yet another “community discussion” on April 6 on “the importance of retiring the Wakefield Warrior logo.” If it doesn’t matter, why were two current anti-logo School Committee members featured speakers? If it’s a done deal, why were they collecting $20 “donations” from everyone who attended their April 6 “community discussion?”
Actions speak louder than words. The actions of the anti-logo crowd show that they believe the vote on April 27 is enormously important.
The pro-Warrior side had better believe it too.
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[This column originally appeared in the April 8, 2021 Wakefield Daily Item.]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 6 Comments
Tags: ActBlue, April 27, election, Indian, lawn signs, logo, Mark Sardella, Native American, Opinion, Politics, rallies, vote, voting, Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield High School, Wakefield MA, Wakefield School Committee, Wakefield Warrior
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Mark Sardella 
There’s a saying that academic politics is so vicious because there is so little at stake. The same seems to hold for the culture wars. Hello boys and girls we are getting hot and bothered about a freaking cartoon character.
Of the many thing that Henry Kissinger was wrong about, he was most wrong in underestimating what was really at stake in the academic politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s — that was the toehold that led to the left’s dominance today.
Symbols matter very much: Have you ever wondered about the ‘Bratach na hÉireann’ — why the Irish flag is orange, white, and green?
Orange stands for Protestants, Green stands for Catholics — and the White stands for the lasting peace between the two, how they were both going to unite to fight the British, which they did.
What you refer to as a “cartoon character” is actually a symbol reflecting our grasp at immortality — our effort to retain an identity that a bunch of rich outsiders wish to steal from us.
And Mark, follow the money — they have to file with the OCPF and print all of the out-of-town sources funding the erasure movement.
SC acted beyond their scope and authority. It does have appearance of impropriety to see SC members with the “Vote No” signs. And disrespectful for them to do it at the Galvin.
No Warrior, No Override — NO NEW HIGH SCHOOL!!!
The same people who want to get rid of the logo are the same people who want a new high school, which they simply aren’t going to be able to build without a Prop 2.5 override.
So I say NO OVERRIDE — NO NEW HIGH SCHOOL!!!
The other side of Indian history — this just in from a professional association I belong to that is advertising an event. And why do I suspect that none of this is taught at WHS?
“In 1675, the Wampanoag chief Metacom (known as Philip), rejected the alliance that his father Massasoit had forged with the New England colonists. Wampanoag and Narragansett raiding parties attacked villages throughout New England, and Governor Josiah Winslow marshaled 1,000 men, one of the largest colonial armies seen up to that time, to fight back. Tensions rose to a fever pitch, and in less than a year nearly half the towns in New England had been attacked, with over a dozen towns destroyed. Plymouth and Rhode Island’s economies were in free-fall, and the Wampanoags and Narragansetts were all but wiped out. Hundreds lost their lives, and the war is widely considered one of the deadliest in Colonial history.”
What Carmen Ubanas neglected to mention in today’s letter to the Item is that she now works for the Dexter Southfield School in Brookline.
A high school that charges $53,980 per year, which is more than Harvard ($49,653) and she purports to preach to us about Social Justice?!?
Whom does this woman think she is?