Wielding Words Against White Supremacy
I haven’t posted a blog lately, but I have been writing a lot and it is showing up in my art more than ever. Big block letters for protest signs and stickers, fancy letters for art prints, and letters just like these for some long emails that I have been sending. One of these emails will make up the bulk of this blog post because this email sums up a lot of what has been going through my head lately. If there was an overall theme to the last few months, it would be, “there is no pride in white supremacy!” I have always understood that white supremacy was there lurking, but it has never been so visible and proud as it is now. The irony is that this very pride and visibility may be the downfall of some of the most overt forms of white supremacy. It hides so well, but when it is visible it is hard to to ignore.
What representation of white supremacy am I aiming my attention at with this email? A name. This name is an identifier for many of the people in my town (Hanover, Indiana) call themselves because it represented them as a mascot and nickname in our local school system. They are the Rebels. The name “Rebels” is a kickback to white supremacy because of how it represents the confederate cause from the Civil War. The cause of the confederate “Rebels” is explained by some as freedom from tyranny, states rights, cultural differences, or economics...but we know that all of those reasons were founded in the practice of the right for almost exclusively white people to legally practice slavery which oppressed almost exclusively black people. Hanoverians have been “Rebels” since the early 1960’s when the schools consolidated due to the mandate for racial desegregation that happened in 1954 with the decision of Brown Vs. The Board of Education. There are many ways to desegregate schools and still maintain a mostly segregated environment. One of those ways is to create a mascot that represents a confederate soldier holding a confederate rebel flag, name him Colonel Reb, and call everyone at your school the Rebels. I can tell you as someone who studied art history and had to draw many conclusions about how symbols were tied to contemporary events of the time, that the timing of the national trend of schools adapting mascots representing “Rebels” aligns perfectly as a response to desegregation.
My question to the Southwestern School Board is how can we let any reference to this symbol representing white supremacy remain and expect to live into the school’s mission? I have been working with a group called Retire the Rebel Southwestern for months, and we have all been emailing the school board with almost no response from these elected officials. We have been criticized for stirring up “hate,” but that “hate” is actually long standing white supremacy that we have repackaged into the identity of our town! What do we do with “hate” if we aren’t exposing it? We are complicit if we aren’t speaking out. As promised, here is the email that I sent the Southwestern School Board several weeks ago outlining my perspective and some of the many reasons that the school should not keep the name “Rebels.”
Dear Southwestern School Board,
I am writing this letter as a follow up to the comments I provided at the July board meeting. Our group, now with the name Retire the Rebel Southwestern, is making progress in sharing our message and organizing more broadly in the community and with other schools across the nation. We are excited about this progress, but I wanted to use this letter to more directly address my personal concerns regarding the Southwestern school nickname, the Rebels.
As a resident of Hanover, this issue is not new to me, it has been on my mind for a long time. My husband used to be the Assistant Volleyball Coach at the high school, and I would attend every match to take pictures to assist the coaches and to share with the students and their families. It never felt right for me to yell, “Go Rebels” during the matches. I literally had to trick myself into thinking of the Star Wars Rebel Alliance in order to say those words, and it still made me uncomfortable. Often I would just cheer for individual students rather than say “Rebels” at all. After my husband moved to a different coaching position at another school, I haven’t been back to support the “Rebels” at sporting events even though I wanted to support the students. What caused my discomfort with this name? Bear with me, and please keep reading.
My calls to Retire the Rebel have led to many people in town calling me many names including, “an outsider.” It is true that I didn’t grow up here, but I have been affiliated with Hanover ever since my freshman year at Hanover College in 2000. Before that I grew up in Clinton, South Carolina. Clinton is in Laurens County and it is a lot like Hanover. There is a small Liberal Arts College in Clinton, the county seat of Laurens is a 10 minute drive away, and there was a big high school rivalry between Clinton and Laurens. I left Laurens County because I felt like an outsider there as well. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the Lost Cause sensibilities that were present in my town, and they made me feel uncomfortable and unsafe. White supremacy was highly visible in my town from the Confederate monument, to the segregated neighborhoods, and even the presence of the KKK. Our courthouse square had an old movie theater that KKK members bought and turned into a National White Supremacist headquarters, KKK museum, and even had a gift shop called “The Redneck Shop” that sold everything from various Rebel Flag branded items, to Klan robes, and memberships to the KKK. In Laurens County you had to assume that any white person could be in or in support of the Klan because it was so prevalent. Speaking out about the Klan or the Redneck Shop was a big issue and could put you, your family and friends at risk. Everyone had stories of someone they knew driving country roads at night and seeing fire from cross lightings in the fields. There were stories of the Klan taking out hit orders on prominent black leaders in our community. It was terrifying to exist in that environment, even as a white person because I knew hate that intense is volatile to everyone around it. Strongest of all was my fear for the safety of my black friends and the black community in general. The rest of my community excused it as, “Oh, they are just rednecks,””they are just celebrating their heritage,” or “Let the good-ole-boys be.” But I knew it was subversive, dangerous, and that my community was making excuses to avoid addressing the issues. I decided to go out of state for college because I was ready to leave the overt racism, confederate imagery, and scary Klan connections behind. As a teenager I didn’t know how to address this issue, and I was too scared to stick around and try.
My friends in South Carolina never understood why I was going to, “Some Yankee School in Indiana.” Had I known that the town I was moving to in 2000 had a high school mascot called “The Rebels” with a confederate flag and confederate soldier, I would have chosen a different college. I thought by moving to a state that wasn’t historically a part of the Confederacy, I would be able to live in a community that understood that the symbols of the Confederacy were still overtly tied to white supremacy and create a hostile living environment for black people in particular. I was wrong, and now I fear that my community in Hanover may be more like my hometown than I thought. The Lost Cause sensibilities are here too even though our Civil War monument downtown is dedicated to the Union troops. The KKK recruits here because the they see Jefferson County as a place of opportunity for their hatred to take root. I had a black friend experience two children in Hanover calling her the N-word. Recently I have legally and peacefully demonstrated outside of the courthouse in Madison asking for justice for Breonna Taylor, and I have seen terribly racist behavior in response. On top of many rude gestures and exclamations of “White Lives Matter” I have literally seen people in our community give Nazi salutes and say, “F-you you N-word lovers” in a response to asking for justice. Asking to retire the Rebel is just the beginning of the story when it comes to addressing the issues of white supremacy in our community, and it is a great place to start.
So here I am. I am not a scared teenager any more. I am outlining why it is so important not to have “Rebel Pride” in our community. We need to make it very clear that everyone is welcome, and retiring the Rebel is the first step. Along with my personal account, please consider these points:
A national conversation is happening now. Schools are changing their “Rebel” mascots without referendums and community debate because it is so clearly problematic. Not acting promptly will create a lag in action that makes the perceived racism of our school nickname even worse. Inaction will only create a bigger spotlight on our community.
The case is clear when concerning the “Rebels” name, consider these points regarding the context of names:
The terms “Rebel Flag” and “Confederate Flag” are interchangeable. The two words are undeniably linked in American culture and history.
There is also the idea expressed about the word “South” and “Rebels” being linked in the dissertation The Rebel Made me do it: Mascots, Race, and the Lost Cause by Patrick Smith states that, “ Twenty-two of the Rebel schools have “South” in their name. Only seven Rebel schools contain “West” and three “North” with none associated with “East”. The higher than average number of “South” schools shows that South as a term in the American vernacular still has a deep association with the term Rebel.” (p. 45-46) Whether it was intentional or not, having the word “South” in our school name further connects the name “Rebels” to the south’s connection to the Confederacy.
The school uses the word “Rebels” as a name which is a proper noun which represents a group of specific people, most commonly in our society it represents the Confederacy. The word “rebel” could be a verb or a noun that usually represents an individual’s actions. “Rebels” with a capital R has a very specific meaning and we as a community can’t overshadow or overrule that meaning.
Southwestern’s mission statement states that it will, “provide all students an equal opportunity for exceptional success within a safe and secure learning environment.” When the history of the school is full of confederate imagery, to many it does not feel safe and secure, nor does it create an equal opportunity for learning, and it doesn’t set any students up for exceptional success. Mascots can affect how students see themselves and value themselves, and it is unacceptable to require any student who finds the term “Rebels” offensive to tolerate the emotional strain of wearing that name or walking by a sign that says that they are a “Rebel.” It is also unacceptable to let students who are not offended brandish the name and the symbols associated with it.
As our presidential campaigns gear up, it makes me sad to think that if a Southwestern alumnus were to run for a major political office, researchers would dig into their past and likely find photos of them brandishing symbols of the confederacy and white supremacy in the name of school pride. It wouldn’t be the students’ fault that this happens, it would be the school’s fault, but the student would suffer from it.
How well do you retain students of color? When I worked in College Admission there were a few major things that we needed to publish to show that we were a quality school, and if we were failing in certain areas we needed to address them immediately in order to effectively recruit students. One of the things was student retention. People believe that they will be successful at a school if the data showed that other students like them are successful. Retention was so important to Hanover College that they created an entire position specifically to improve retention. If the college saw that a certain group of students were not continuing their program at a higher rate than other students, they knew that they needed to root out the issue and make sure that there was equitable support to keep that group of students on campus. While I couldn’t find specific retention information online I did find from www.publicschoolreview.com that “diverse” students make up 10% of the Southwestern Elementary and Middle School students, but only 6% of the High School Students. Madison Consolidated High School’s data showed that students who are considered “diverse” are attending at almost double the percentage as compared to Southwestern. You need to investigate why you are not seeing diverse students continue into High School at Southwestern. I believe that if you survey students that decided not to attend High School at Southwestern after spending elementary and middle school there, you will find you answer. I have a theory that the greater influence of the word “Rebel” at the High School and the issues tied to it is a part of the cause.
School choice requires you to recruit students, I know this because I see the billboards around town encouraging students to enroll at the various schools in our county. With budgets being set based on the number of enrolled students, it is important to maintain a healthy enrollment. I don’t think that anyone is coming to Southwestern solely because they love the name “Rebels”, but I know that people in Hanover are not sending their children to Southwestern solely because they don’t want to affiliate their children with the name “Rebels.”
I believe it is contradictory for schools to teach the history of the Civil War and continue to use the name Rebels. How can the school ask to have pride in this name when the history affiliated with it is so offensive? Own that the name “Rebels” is not in line with the intent of the school’s mission, don’t simply remove the offensive imagery and reinterpret school history in an attempt to save face. Change the mascot in full, name and image.
Rebel Pride is a lie. If we could have pride in our mascot we would have a mascot that could cheer with the cheerleaders at athletic events, be photographed in college athletics signing ceremonies, and represent our community at state championships. We are cheating our students out of a full high school experience by keeping a name that is tied to the image of white supremacy. If we can’t keep the image of our mascot, we should change the name as well.
I am a fan of Southwestern schools. In a professional setting I have examined your school curriculum, reviewed transcripts, and worked with excellent students in their college search. It is a shame that all of this greatness is tied up in something that I perceive to be, at best, offensive.
Let’s move forward and let this period of our community history become history. Let’s move forward. Let’s retire the Rebel. This is my call to action to act upon this issue. Please feel free to follow up with me on any of these statements.
Thank you for your time,
Jane Stormer
Hanover Resident
