A decade after then-Mayor Joseph Malecki suggested changing the village’s potentially offensive image, current officials say the Whitesboro village seal is staying just the way it is for the foreseeable future.

A decade after then-Mayor Joseph Malecki suggested changing the village’s potentially offensive image, current officials say the Whitesboro village seal is staying just the way it is for the foreseeable future.



The seal, which appears on village stationary, police cars and the village Web site, among other places, depicts Whitesboro founder Hugh White and an Indian wrestling.



But the action taking place between them is not always clear. Some say White is pushing or tripping the Indian, others say that he’s choking him.



In reality, Mayor Richard Pugh said, the seal portrays a legendary, friendly wrestling match that White won, thereby gaining the local Indians’ respect.



“It’s a seal that takes a little explaining,” Pugh said about the image that dates back to at least the early 1900s.



The debate

Village trustee Margaret Stephenson was on the village board in 1999 when Malecki suggested a contest to replace the village seal with another image. No alternatives were put forward, however, so the board chose to keep the original symbol, she said.



“I think it was because some of the residents brought it up that they wanted it changed. … But the board voted it down,” she said. “And I think that once we explained it to some of the people, they accepted it.”



Both Stephenson and Pugh said they have not heard any complaints about the seal since then.



Most Whitesboro residents recently asked about the seal said they didn’t know what it looked like. Many said they had no opinion once the image was described to them.



One resident, however, said she thought the image was fine given its historical significance.



“I remember reading about Hugh White, and he had a good relationship with the Indians, so I would believe the wrestling thing,” Barbara Gould said.



Whitesboro historian Judy Mallozzi said the current seal was adopted sometime in the 1970s after the village was sued by an Indian group over the depiction at that time.



“The hands of Hugh White were on his neck area,” she said of the earlier image. “So after the lawsuit, it was determined it’s part of our history, so we didn’t have to stop using the seal. We just had to move it, so it’s down on his shoulders.”



The portrayal

Professor Jon Paramenter, a faculty member in Cornell University’s American Indian Program, said Native Americans’ reactions to such questionable portrayals are often mixed.



Some see them as a minor concern compared to issues such as poverty or sovereignty conflicts. Others believe they may “reinforce and perpetuate negative stereotypes of indigenous people as violent aggressors or … enemies who must be overcome,” he said.



American Indians also are more likely to be caricatured than other ethnic minorities in the United States today, he said.



Oneida Nation Council Turtle Clan representative Clint Hill, however, said the description of the seal’s portrayal did not seem patently offensive, although he had not seen it in person.



The Oneidas typically had good relationships with area settlers, he said, and “Indian wrestling,” in which opponents place their feet together and use only one arm to try to throw the other person, is a common game among friends.



“With the so-called Indian wrestling, you just knocked the person off balance,” he said. “We used to do it all the time as kids.”



If anything, Hill said, he would want the image changed to more accurately portray the wrestling style and to show the proper headdress for the Indian in the image.



An Oneida would wear one with two feathers pointing up and one pointing down, he said.