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Onteora mascot debate gets ugly
BOICEVILLE: Onteora's Indian mascot controversy gets tainted by Internet anti-Semitism.
By Alan Snel
The Times Herald-Record
The ugly specter of anti-Semitism and a white supremacist group has seeped into the Indian mascot controversy at Onteora schools in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains.
And Bev Stein, who embraced the return of the Indian symbol two months ago after a volatile political battle in the north Ulster County district, did not appreciate the ugliness getting publicized at a school board meeting this week.
Enough already of the mascot firestorm, said Stein, secretary of a group called Community Awareness Regarding Education. The group endorsed the high school symbol, pictured in a mural as a fierce Indian brave, with a Mohawk haircut, holding a tomahawk.
"We're still fighting the same issue," Stein said. "We should move on."
Tobe Carey of a rival organization that wants the Indian symbol removed thinks otherwise.
At Monday night's Onteora school board meeting, Carey's group passed out copies of anti-Semitic smut posted on the Internet in August that asked for support to restore the Indian mascot in Onteora schools.
Stein said the anti-Indian mascot group, by passing out the anti-Jewish, white supremacist material, intended to smear local folks who supported the Indian's return.
But Carey denied that, explaining his group wanted to simply "blow the whistle" on the anti-Semitic letter, which was connected to a European hate group called Final Conflict.
"We wanted to shine the light on this letter for targeting our district and asking support," said Carey, whose wife, Meg, is one of two members on the seven-member school board who opposed the return of the Indian mascot in September.
"We're not pointing fingers at anyone. I would hope nobody in the community subscribes to those feelings," Carey said of the group Support Tolerance and Nurture Diversity. "The issue (of the return of the Indian mascot) was never off the table."
During the meeting, Superintendent Hal Rowe blasted the anti-Semitic letter for trying to divide his School District.
The school board voted 4-3 in January to retire the Indian mascot. But a school board election in May voted in pro-Indian mascot members to the panel, which voted 5-2 in September to return the symbol.
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