Letter: The Chippewa name isn't the problem — the racist louts are

To The Editor.

I have no doubt Erika Lougheed is a good person. Nor do I have any doubts that her intentions are good in relation to her efforts to address the wrongs of racist acts perpetrated at Chippewa Secondary School.

Unfortunately, Ms. Lougheed has incorrectly identified the source of that unacceptable racism.

It is not the use of the name “Chippewa” that is the cause. The cause is the behaviour of those racist louts who use terms like “Chippesquaws” and who otherwise maliciously denigrate people who do not share all of their own characteristics or reprehensible opinions and attitudes.

Eliminating the word “Chippewa” from the high school name will do nothing to change the behaviour that needs to be called out and changed. Moreover, the elimination tacitly brands anyone who is proud of being a student, a graduate, an employee or an ex-employee of Chippewa as implicit in that terrible behaviour.

I doubt Chippewa is, or ever was, a hotbed of racism.

Did acts of racism occur there? Of that I am certain. But enough to besmirch the reputation of an institution that can be very proud of the education it has provided and continues to provide to thousands of fine young people?

Get to the root of the problem. The name isn’t the problem. 

Bob Walpole

North Bay