SALEM, MA — The official city seal of Salem is set to be scrapped after years of often-highly-contentious debate between those who champion the historical value of the 1839 seal and those who argue that the depiction of a Sumatran spice trader is offensive to parts of the community and should no longer represent the city or its values.
The City Council voted 8-2 to accept the City Seal Task Force's recommendation to remove the seal in favor of an as-yet-undeveloped one that would presumably be more inclusive of both the city's rich past and diverse present.
The vote culminates years of public consternation about the seal. The City Council in 2024 formed the Task Force, which was given up to 18 months to gather information, solicit and listen to public testimony, and then make a recommendation to the City Council to maintain or change the seal.
The Task Force presented its recommendation to the City Council Committee of the Whole, which forwarded the recommendation to replace the seal to the full City Council.
"We can all look at the same history, and listen to the same people and come to different conclusions," said City Councilor Ty Hapworth, one of two votes against changing the seal, saying he hoped to extend the decision process to include more public debate and input. "I know that my colleagues took this very, very seriously and did the work behind the scenes to come to their own conclusions. ... It is a unique and complex set of questions for a governing body to grapple with.
Hapworth said he supported preserving the seal and debating its complex history, but also developing a new official civic logo.
The majority of the Council sided with the opinion that even if the seal is offensive to a small section of the city's population, it should not be used to represent the city as a whole.
"When we have residents telling us, particularly from marginalized communities, that a city-sanctioned symbol makes them feel othered and causes harm, we should listen," Councilor Kyle Davis said, "And listen more than we speak. Particularly, as a white man myself, I don't think it's my job to tell a marginalized community how something should make them feel or disagree with them on those merits. Or put my own interpretation above theirs.
"I disagree that this is, in a way, erasing or changing our history. In Salem, we are very privileged to have an abundance of ways to learn about our history. ... We can appreciate that history without also perpetrating a caricature and stereotype that beloved community members are telling us causes harm to them."
"Moving forward does not require us to forget history," Councilor Andy Varela echoed. "It requires us to interpret it honestly and ensure that our civic identity reflects the values we claim to uphold."
City Councilor Lydia King said that being informed that the seal is offensive to members of the city's AAPI community and still choosing to keep it would be counter to being the type of inclusive community Salem purports to be.
"The message that keeping this city symbol sends is one that would say Salem is OK with perpetuating a symbol that has been tied to a long history of racist imagery in our country," King said. "It puts the AAPI community in our country, and in our city, in real danger.
"This is not just something offensive. This is something that literally leads to crimes — hate crimes — against members of the AAPI community."
City Councilors also pushed back against the argument that a citywide referendum decide whether or not to keep the seal.
'This is not an issue to be decided by popular vote," Councilor Erin Turowski said. "This is an issue of morality and ethics, and the lived experiences of a minority population that, to be quite honest, most of us cannot really relate to because we don't belong to it."
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