Benson adjusts to the future by wiping out its history

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Are men and women ready to be sent to the trash heap of evolution?

That’s “men” and “women,” the gender-specific terms, which are now seen by an increasing part of society as offensive because they define a person when that person might not want to be defined as a man or a woman.

Benson High took a step toward that evolution recently by changing its mascot from the Techmen and Lady Techsters to Astros, which corresponds with the timing of reopening the school after three years of construction.

The move to a new mascot, from e-mails I’ve received being a parent of recent grads and a grad myself of the school, followed discussions within the student body of a need for more inclusion that the old mascots did not provide. So, Techmen and Lady Techsters were, apparently, offensive to some students, and enough of the student body agreed to cause the administration to abandon the history of the school for ... evolution.

Are boys and girls next?

That’s “boys” sports and “girls” sports. This discussion is headed for the OSAA, the organization that oversees high school athletics in the state.

It’s hard to fathom that “men” and “women” are offensive, or non-inclusive unless you’re looking for non-inclusive.

I’m a fan of the old mascots: Techmen and Lady Techsters, because they were Benson-specific. Are there any other Techmen in the nation? Lady Techsters? Benson owned something special.

But, further, the larger issue I have with the change is how little it rattled anyone. It’s as if people just didn’t care about the change, or are set to believe their voice won’t be heard anyway, so what’s the point of saying “don’t change the mascot.”

We’re evolving into a society that just doesn’t care anymore, unless it’s the most radical voice of any issue. The loudest voice is the one that gets heard, and everyone else seems to just allow that to happen. Speak up in favor of keeping the Techmen/Techsters? That will only draw all the attention and stress of being deemed a mysogynist or some other ist, when you’re not actually doing anything but speaking up FOR something, not against something.

I would like the school to return to the original mascot, as that’s a part of the school community for graduates. And, there isn’t anything offensive about those mascots, not like Redskins or Indians (or Woodrow Wilson).

The rationale that’s used for inclusion, also leads to exclusion for the people who did not have a problem with the gender-specific identities of the mascots. It’s like being a “man” or a “woman” these days is bad.

How are boys and girls sports going to address this? OSAA? The easiest answer is to not even recognize the issue. But, it’s there, and it’s not going away. That’s the thing about evolution, it just keeps going.

Now that the gender-specific mascots at Benson have been replaced by ... “whatever” as my kids say ... and no one seems to care about that, the real issue that I’m seeing is the “whatever” part. My kids, the recent grads, both followed that answer with “I could care less.”

Standing up for a simple thing like the traditional mascot is not a radical response at all, and it actually got me thinking about the community a high school creates and then disappears every year upon graduation. A lot of students spend four years at a school getting to know their freshmen, or ninth-grade, classmates for four years until their specific Class of X graduates. Then it’s off to elsewhere and that school community evolves into an alumni group of that specific year. And, that’s it. The same thing happens the next year, and on and on. How to address this? An athletic club.

AC Benson Tech.

Athletic Club Benson Tech.

Benson High School and its alumni should create an athletic club that builds the community that’s started by students attending the school.

My ambition beyond an athletic club is that the school returns to its original mascot and then divorces itself from the issue of identity by effectively saying there were always be men in the world just as there will always be women in the world, and having those words in our language is not a form of persecution. And, those words are not ways to admonish the transgender community, either.

There will always be boys in the world, and there will always be girls. Identifying as a boy or a girl is not a form of persecution.

Starting an athletic club should actually be pretty easy in that there’s so many members waiting for just such a club. And with social media, this could take off in a very short time. Maybe it starts with just a rec-league softball team - coed.

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