Whitesboro, N.Y.

When I meet someone new, I will often challenge them to an amicable wrestle.

There's no better way to make a new friend. All awkwardness disappears once you and a stranger have groped at each other's unmentionables or pinned one another to the ground. It's a terrific icebreaker, really.

So count me among those who can appreciate the Whitesboro seal, which is said to depict the first meeting of village founder Hugh White and a Native American. The image shows White grabbing a shirtless Oneida chief by the neck at what seems to be the beginning of their tussle.

Gee, who could have a problem with that?

Plenty of people, apparently.

The media jackals have decided that the seal is somehow offensive or, get this, racist. The unfortunately named village is being subjected to worldwide attention, and none of it is positive. The New York Times even noted, disapprovingly, that the seal shows White "throttling" a Native American "who appears to be on the verge of defeat."

Don't these people know how wrestling works?!

I felt compelled to enter the belly of the controversy. On Thursday, I traveled to Whitesboro, which is about 80 miles west of Albany, near Utica, to commiserate with the locals about their mistreatment at the hands of the elite media.

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I arrived three days after residents had affirmed their love for the image and its historic grapple, voting 157 to 55 to keep the seal as a film crew from "The Daily Show" looked on. I arrived the morning after Stephen Colbert had talked about the village on "The Late Show."

"Who are we to judge what two consenting men do on a town seal?" Colbert asked.

They say it's quietest at the center of a storm, and so it was in Whitesboro. No demonstrations jammed its streets. I heard no shouting. And while many lawns were spiked by protest signs, they were objecting to something called the "NY SAFE Act."

In fact, during my four hours wandering around the small village — population 3,800 — I wasn't able to find anyone who objected to the seal.

"I say leave it alone," said lifelong resident James Hayes. "It never bothered anybody before."

Like most in the upstate village, Hayes was well versed in the legend depicted on the seal that appears on Whitesboro's official stationery, police cars and more.

"It shows the settlers and the Indians getting together and having a party," he said. "They were enjoying themselves by having a wrestling match."

This is said to have happened in 1784, when White was the first, um, "white inhabitant" of the area, according to an account on the village website. When asked by the chief to wrestle, White took the challenge "and by a fortunate trip succeeded in almost instantly throwing him."

White then fell on the chief and didn't let him up for awhile. He was like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin pinning Vince McMahon to the mat.

When the chief eventually rose from the dirt, he said, "UGH, you good fellow too much." (I swear I'm not making this up.) Afterward, the settlers and the Oneida all lived happily in a spirit of great respect and goodwill.

That's nice. I love it when history has a happy ending.

Strangely, though, I didn't see any Oneida during my time in Whitesboro. It was almost as if they'd been driven away or something.

In any event, the media vultures will be disappointed to know that not everyone lives with their eyes glued to screens.

Some in Whitesboro were unaware of the nasty national coverage until I helpfully mentioned it to them.

"They must live in a community where everything is perfect," resident Ray Daviau said of the village's critics. "They must have nothing else to worry about."

Daviau has a point. A weird aspect of the Internet age is that we ignore the injustices in our own cities and towns, then log on to mock the supposed fools in distant places.

Daviau, a former Whitesboro mayor, was on the Village Board when officials tried to quell complaints by making a small adjustment to the seal. Daviau said the village wanted the image would to look less like an attempted strangulation.

But the critics are impossible to please, and the change hasn't quelled their squawks.

That has led the present mayor, Patrick O'Connor, to say he'll form a committee tasked with modifying the seal to something more "culturally acceptable." But as the recent vote in favor of the seal shows, his effort seems destined to hit stiff resistance.

"They're changing too many things in the world," said Jeffrey Esper, who I found shoveling snow near the Whitesboro library. "You can't please everybody, so why even try?"

Had the weather been warmer, I might have asked Esper to wrestle.

We would have been newcomer and native entangled in the sweaty mission of friendship, just like old times.

cchurchill@timesunion.com • 518-454-5442 • @chris_churchill