UPDATE 1/11/16: Village officials took an informal vote on Monday night and an overwhelming majority were in favor of keeping the controversial seal. According to Syracuse.com, residents were asked to decide whether or not they wanted the image to stay and if not, which design should take its place. 157 out of 212 voted to leave the seal as is but that doesn't necessarily mean it will stay. Officials will go over the results on Tuesday night.
"It's been a controversy for decades, so we decided to get the input of our local village residents," Whitesboro Mayor Patrick O'Connor said. "We wanted to get a feeling from them on what image they want to represent their history."
See the original story below.
The United States has a long and glorious history of racist names and imagery, but following the horrific racially motivated shootings in Charleston (the attacker proudly displayed the Confederate flag on social media), some progress is being made in correcting that history. South Carolina's state government voted to remove the Confederate flag from its capitol building, the Washington Redskins are maybe thinking about considering rebranding, and the Mayor of a small town in New York is giving its residents the chance to vote on whether this image of a white guy strangling a Native American should remain the city's seal.
Last summer Patrick O'Connor, Mayor of the small town of Whitesboro, New York (yes, that's actually what it's called), denied the town's official seal was racist. "It’s actually a very accurate depiction of friendly wrestling matches that took place back in those days," he told the Village Voice. However, he's since changed his mind and/or given into pressure from the Internet.
"We want to just put an end to it once and for all," O'Connor toldWKTV. "Let the residents have the say about what seal they want to represent them and their home and their history." Registered residents will put the seal to a vote on Jan. 11.
