Wielding Words Against White Supremacy: Part 2

I didn’t think I would have such a thorough and unfortunate update to my last post so quickly.  The very school board meeting (Sept. 28th 2020) that didn’t have a vote on whether or not to remove the name “Rebels” on the agenda ended with a statement from the Superintendent.  The statement, read by the school board president, stated that there would be no vote on the name because feedback from a flawed survey did not convince him that the vote was necessary.  I emailed the superintendent about his survey weeks ago, no response.  I will end this post with that email.  I didn’t lose sleep over this announcement, we anticipated that there would be some kind of disappointing response since we had to work so hard to get any response.  There was, however, some affirmation.  The statement did state that the imagery affiliated with the word Rebels was unfortunate and that while the images may have been acceptable at some point in history, that was no longer the case.  While no policy was outlined in this statement, it was implied and leaves room for follow up. The school hasn’t said this publicly before, they have just been quietly and slowly pulling the images down since the early 2000’s. At least now they aren’t doing it quietly and we can hold them to their word. I also look forward to challenging the very “soft” approach to calling out racism from the statement and addressing the idea that these images were ever acceptable.

The statement also drew from what the school perceives as the real history of the origin of the name Rebels.  The story goes that back in the late 1950’s school consolidation was going on all over Indiana.  This was a push to consolidate hundreds of tiny schools and into larger districts that could budget more effectively because there would be fewer properties to maintain. Southwestern Jefferson County Schools formed as the consolidation of two smaller schools in the southwestern part of the county, and Madison formed its own district of consolidated schools.  The Rebel name came from the small schools in the rural southern part of the county banding together and rebelling against the big city school district. When the students voted on a name they picked “Rebels” over other options for this reason, according to the superintendent and many pro-Rebels community members.

I don’t refute this story.  I am sure it is true because the Southwestern vs. Madison rivalry is truly something to behold. After the July 2020 school board meeting where the Retire the Rebel group spoke and asked to change the name, we were confronted in the parking lot with someone flying a confederate flag and others telling our group to, “Go back to Madison.”   Where I differ in perspective is that the superintendent offered the anti-Madison rebellion as the ONLY reason that the name Rebels was chosen. There is always more than one side to a story, and the story that our superintendent has chosen to acknowledge is the most politically correct version of the story.  What wasn’t included in this tale was that Jefferson County Indiana had gone through state mandated desegregation in 1957, so as they were in the process of consolidating they were still dealing with the after effects of public school integration.  It was both the trend of consolidation (which created the need to build new schools) and desegregation (which created the need for racist people to rebel against it) that made the mascot moniker “Rebels” so popular across the country in the early 1960’s. When you consider that all of the students from the only black high school in the county, the Broadway school, were enrolled at Madison High School, how can we not assume that the southern rebellion against consolidation with Madison was also because it represented a more integrated school district? This history of Southwestern is essentially it’s own tiny version of the Civil War, and they chose a mascot to represent the situation perfectly.

One of the many signs that greeted the Retire the Rebels group at the July 2020 School Board Meeting.

A few years ago I listened to a local black man’s story of what the Civil Rights era was like in Jefferson County, and it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Many of the black community members that were teens during the Civil Rights era moved away because of racism and the lack of opportunities that came with it.  We could do a lot more active listening to the black community in Jefferson County about the past and the present.  In 2020, Jefferson County is still 95% white.  If we were a welcoming community for everyone, those numbers wouldn’t be so skewed.  Speaking of skewed numbers, here is my email to the Southwestern Superintendent, Jeff Bates, about his survey that still has not received a response:

Superintendent Bates,

We spoke last week in your office and I wanted to follow up after seeing the survey that was released today.  I am glad that you see this as an urgent issue, but your survey seemed rather rushed.  Please accept this feedback and consider doing another survey:

1.  I was confused about requiring an email address for the survey.  Is this a way to begin collecting alumni information?  If so, it is important that you inform participants that you are collecting emails for future solicitation.  I would advise making this optional. Also, many of us are feeling rather unsafe about speaking out about the Rebels name, and having an identifier like this could make people feel unsafe in participating as they may fear retaliation if this survey is published or shared publicly.  Sharing information about confidentiality may be helpful.

2. I noticed that you only allowed participants to note that they were “Student, Parent of a student, Teacher, or Alumni.”  When we spoke you noted that you were not interested in hearing from people that were not in our community, but this list most definitely does not make room for everyone in the community to participate including myself.  The fact that I have no children now does not mean that I will never have children in our school system, and my voice as a taxpayer and member of this community should have a place in this discussion.

3. A leading question prompts people on how to answer the question within the question itself.  Questions 4,5,6, and 7 are leading questions.

4. Questions 4 and 5 are the same question asked in different ways.

5. Question six is interesting because the question does not refer to the mascot or word Rebels at all. Is this question just a confirmation that the person that created the survey thinks that the name Rebels is connected to racial discrimination and prejudice?  Racial discrimination and prejudice are everywhere, whether our community understands that or not.  Unless this question is somehow tied to the mascot/nickname issue, all we are going to learn is how educated our community is or isn’t about racial discrimination, prejudice, and bias.

6. The final question has a typo.  It asks if the participant associates the word “rebel” with the confederacy during the Civil War.  In other places in the survey the word “Rebels” is used instead of “rebel.”  There is a big difference in these two words.  One is a proper noun and the other has broader meanings.  The proper noun “Rebels” is the word that has ties to the Confederacy during the Civil War, while the word “rebel” is singular, often used as a verb and is not our school nickname. 

7. This is a question that I would actually like a response on rather than just offering feedback.  How are you circulating the survey?  We are seeing that some alumni have received an email prompting them to fill it out while others have not. Is there a list in use, if so how were those email addresses collected?

I hope this helps. If you would like more feedback, I could help connect you with the Hanover College Sociology Department. They are often looking for projects for students to conduct unbiased research.

Jane Stormer