Vice President Of Worcester Chamber Of Commerce Alarmed Over South High School Cartoon Mascot On Plaque For Causing Gun Violence

 

Editor’s Note: We discussed this story on the Live Show (48:40)

This is Karen Pelletier from Worcester.

She’s the Vice President of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce, although it’s unclear if she actually lives in or grew up in Worcester. Like most members of the WCC she’s a politically connected activist who uses the Chamber to push her communist political agenda.

 

She is the reason that college tuition is so high, as she has spent most of her time working as a bloated college administrator at various schools.

 

This week she directed her outrage at my alma mater, Worcester South High School. Our mascot is the Colonel, and he looks like a gun toting cartoon yahoo.

The appropriately named Karen only recently discovered that this was South High’s mascot because she visited the school for the first time and saw a plaque that the Class of 2005 donated, which had the Colonel on it. According to Karen she was very disappointed in what she referred to as the “guns plaque.”

Very disappointed to see the guns plaque resurrected at the new South HS @WorcPublic. It is literally in a garden that is called “living garden for our deceased classmates” 🤢 It’s worse to know this was saved for years and carefully housed here. I’m speechless pic.twitter.com/S3KVrq34qj

— Karen Pelletier (@KarenLPelletier) August 19, 2022

“I’m speechless.”

Oh goodness, I hope she’s OK.

Instead of being laughed at and mocked, as would normally happen in a sane world run by actual adults, Karen’s concerns were taken seriously by 4 of the six School Committee members (Tracy Novick, Molly McCullough, Jermoh Kamara, and Sue Coghlin), and they’re now looking into getting rid of it.

 

Walking around the new South High Community School campus, visitors may stumble upon rows of boxes filled with soil, tucked in a corner near the athletics fields, with a plaque reading “A living garden in memory of our deceased classmates,” near the entrance. Upon closer inspection, they’ll notice a second plaque, one that is drawing criticism on social media, that has the school’s mascot — a cartoon colonel holding two guns in each hand — that’s dancing between the name of the school on top and the phrase “A gift from the class of 2005.”  “Very disappointed to see the guns plaque resurrected at the new South HS,” tweeted Karen Pelletier, executive vice president at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. “It’s worse to know this was saved for years and carefully housed here. I’m speechless.” 

Committee member Molly McCullough said that information about the situation had been sent to the superintendent for review.  “It’s been sent to administration for review,” McCullough said. “If it’s necessary to look at policy, the School Committee will do so.”

The cartoon mascot of the South High Colonel was believed to be the creation of longtime Telegram cartoonist Al Banx, who also created mascots for Auburn High and Assumption University and featured the Colonel among the mascots in his sports cartoons

First of all, since when is the South High Colonel a confederate? It’s just a cartoon. Everyone will be fine.

Secondly, the lesson we should’ve learned from George Floyd is about the dangers of fentanyl. Derek Chauvin shouldn’t have knelt on his neck for 9 minutes, but George Floyd never would’ve found himself in that position if he hadn’t overdosed on fentanyl, which caused him to act erratically and attract the attention of police in the first place. Kids in Worcester are far more likely to die from a fentanyl overdose than they are from gun violence, and far more likely to interact with police if they do drugs. Maybe if these elected officials did something about preventing the sale and distribution of drugs amongst students less people would die.

Most importantly, no one is dying because of a high school mascot. Not a single life would be saved by getting rid of it. Gang members don’t suddenly lay down their arms because the colonel participated in the gun buy back program.

These are unserious people who aren’t the least bit concerned with actually preventing gun violence. Every time a school shooting happens they immediately obsess over gun control before eventually being distracted by a new cause de jour, and nothing gets done. Earlier in the week the School Committee voted 5-1 to get rid of the rule to only allow students to carry transparent backpacks to class. It was a safety measure thousands of school districts put in place after the Parkland shooting, but since Tracy Novick isn’t serious about combating gun violence she voted to get rid of it:

School Committee member Tracey O’Connell Novick said she was offended by the idea that the rule removed students’ ability to have any privacy.

“This policy actually to me is very representative of a particular way of looking at our students as being safety hazards all the time and our effectively having a policy that is founded on a fundamental mistrust of our students, which I am bothered by already,” O’Connell Novick said.

When I was in high school kids just kind of carried their books to class with their hands, and no one complained. Most school shootings are perpetrated by current or former students, and making sure no students are carrying guns in school doesn’t mean you “mistrust” them. Tracy Novick just hates cops, wants kids to die, and prevented kids from going to school for over a year because she’s afraid of a virus.

Worcester’s new she/her/ella superintendent from California, who will likely stay on the job a couple of years before using it as a resume builder for a higher paying administrative gig in a bigger city, is looking into changing the mascot now.

She’s been on the job for all of 5 minutes and she’s already looking to get rid of decades of tradition. This is why you don’t do national searches when you’re looking for people to run your schools.

Who’s next? The Burncoat Patriot?

 

The Wachusett Mountaineer?

 

The Lexington Minuteman?

Not only are they all carrying guns, but none of them has even attended an equity seminar. Plus, they’re all from time periods when slavery existed, so they’re probably racist too.

As a graduate of South High School I can tell you that lots of kids walk into that building every day with actual, real problems, none of which have anything to do with a cartoon mascot. Their lives will not be improved in any way by getting rid of this plaque. Tracy Novick and Molly McCullough graduated from Notre Dame Academy. Sue Coghlin went to Shrewsbury and grew up rich after being handed her father’s electric company monopoly. They don’t know the first thing about the reality of the Worcester Public Schools, and attacking a cartoon mascot is just a way for elitist liberal white women like them to assuage their own egos.

Fights like this might seem small, but giving into them is why we’ve lost the culture war to the communists. The answer when they demand something like must always be “no,” or else they’ll just keep coming for more.