That's right, a new generation of Tigers join the alumni community!
Part of the tradition is for the new graduates to walk across the oval.
The students are forbidden to walk on the oval until graduation.
But what is on the oval?
A statue of William McKinley, the man the school is named after!
William McKinley was the United States president when the US took over Hawaii in 1898.
So imagine how it feels to have your country taken over, and to have the conquering leader have a prominent statue on the high school located in the urban center where everyone can see it!
While many will point out the benefits Hawaii had under the USA (and point out that "at least Hawaii wasn't taken over by Japan, Germany, Russia, etc), the fact remains that the USA took over Hawaii not for the love or benefit of Hawaii's people, but as a imperialist military launching pad towards Asia!
William McKinley wanted the USA to have an empire just like the British and the French!
He wanted to build the US empire with the remains of the crumbling Spanish empire (with US taking Puerto Rico, Philippines and Guam instead of allowing them to become independent) and then add Hawaii as the half-way point.
William McKinley felt that the non-whites weren't to be trusted to run their own lands. He personified with the worst stereotypes of the "white savior" taking on the "white man's burden" to "civilize the natives".
That is not who we want to honor!
While we can't change the past, we can definitely change the future!
We can have a future in which Hawaii can be independent again
We can have a future where we no longer honor racist imperialist in our schools
We can have a future where our kids are no longer brainwashed to mindlessly accept colonialism.
We can have a future in which the school located in our capitol city's urban core will no longer have a statue built to be a middle finger towards the conquered natives.
We can also have a future that honor the school's great traditions (ie. The Tiger Spirit, walking the oval in the graduation ceremony) without honoring an imperialist!
There are many great things about McKinley High School. We have a grand, beautiful campus. We have great lawns. We have grand buildings! We have a great educational legacy! We have great educational programs! We are in the urban core with easy access to many great urban places students can go to after school. We are located in the economic and political center of the state.
We have the best high school colors Black & Gold!
And of course, we got the Tiger Spirit!
The Tiger Spirit is very sacred to us! It is NOT to be disrespected!
But we don't need to respect William McKinley!
Therefore I proposed that we replace the McKinley statue with a Tiger statue!
image copyright to Pablo Wegesend
I definitely encourage this image to go viral!
Obviously the Tiger statue will look a lot more grand that my cartoonish image 😉
But hey, if it gets a conversation rolling, then so be it!
Go Tigers!
