December 17, 2024 • 37 mins
As Akilah and the Rebel Spirit team continue to pursue updates from BCHS on the mascot change, we wanted to share one more bonus episode before the end of the year. Within today's episode you get an expanded look at three of the many interviews we conducted when creating Rebel Spirit. We'll be back in the new year with a larger update on our progress in continuing to follow this story. Until then, wishing everyone very happy holidays!
If you're in need of holiday gifts, consider checking out the Rebel Spirit Shop: https://rebelspiritshop.myshopify.com/
If you have a racist mascot at your high school, or are an alumni of a high school with a racist mascot, and want to share your own experience, please email us at [email protected]. We would love to talk to you!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My own black a dollar has gone on overlining.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I ninth Planet Audio dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
We're overlining, You're going over.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
We are back today with another bonus episode and a
quick update before the holidays. Since our last episode, we've
continued to follow up with BHS and the school board
for any updates on progress and changing the mascot. Unfortunately,
we don't have a ton of updates to report as
of now, but we are going to keep pushing and
planning on a bigger update episode for you all in
(00:42):
the new year. Until then, feel free to keep reaching
out to the various stakeholders with your words of encouragement
for changing the mascot. Every single nudge helps. Also, if
you're looking for holiday gifts, be sure to check out
the Rebel Spirit Shop online at Rebelspiritshop dot myshopify dot
com and we also have the link in the show notes.
(01:02):
And now, we hope you enjoy this bonus episode featuring
some expanded interviews, and I'd like to wish you a
happy holidays from the entire Rebel Spirit team.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I was a lady rebel, Like, what does.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That even mean?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County rebels
with the image.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Of right here in black and white and friends, am.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I figures is a flag or mascot.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to
be ready for a serious.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Backlash from Ninth Planet Audio.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I'm Akhila Hughes and this is Rebel Spirit Extended Interviews.
When I embarked on this journey of change, I knew
that I would want to talk to a lot of
different people along the way. In the year plus that
we've been working on this podcast, I was lucky enough
to have dozens of interviews, and of course we were
only able to feature a few minutes of what sometimes
(02:01):
ended up being thirty to forty five minute conversations. In
this episode, I wanted to offer some expanded interviews from
three conversations that really stuck with me during the process
of making Rebel Spirit. First, you get to hear a
bit more from Amber Hoffman, who is one of our
first allies on the ground in Florence and has continued
to be a huge source of support for us. I
(02:22):
wanted you to hear more about her organization's fight against
Moms for Liberty. Though we didn't interact much with the
local Moms for Liberty chapter. They have been a hindrance
toward progress for much of what Amber cares about.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So I have a fifteen year old son and a
thirteen year old daughter. My daughter identifies as PAM. My
son is sis like white gender, all of that. He's
the exact stereotype, but he's he's so much evolved like
they this generation below me the most involved. They care
about these things. Like my son, but one of his
(02:54):
best friends is trans. So we'd go and do all
of the activism for this because I'm trying to make
it a safe space for not just my kids, but
all of the kids that live here.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Absolutely awesome, awesome, all right, So tell us a little
bit about the revolution or.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
The Kentucky Like, how did that come together?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
What are you all about?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
A friend of mine was actually she started the revolution
and she decided to run for office this year, so
she had to hand over the reins of this nonprofit
and she contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested,
and I was like, I guess.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So we are awesome.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
You know, we met you at the school board meeting
we went to in Boone County in September, where several
people including some current students, gave really passionate commentary, you know,
asking for respect and fairness when implementing the SBU one
fifty law in schools. So what are you all trying
to achieve? And have you had any wins?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So we started the board meeting portion of what we
do and let me just back up a little bit
about their Revolutions Act. In all of this, we have
decided to take on Moms for Liberty. We have a
chapter of Moms for Liberty that is operating in county.
So Moms for Liberty has been a pretty big or
(04:13):
the women, they're all the same people. They basically our
local Republican Party, the Moms for Liberty nonprofit, and another
nonprofit called We the people that are operating in Boone
County all are the same individuals, you know, we all
wear his same has. I'm a Democrat on the Executive Committee,
but I'm also the revolution here and I'm also just
(04:35):
a random lady that shows up and does them. So
these women have really been there's two or three of
them that have really been the face of pushing this
kind of hateful legislation and they've done a fantastic job.
But they've attached themselves to our state representative, Steve Browlings.
He helps sponsor some of the more heinous bills that
they've been trying to put through SB one fifty, for example.
(04:57):
The chair of Moms for Liberty is one of the
board members. We found out about them November twenty twenty two,
and that's when I started showing up at the board
meetings and talking out against banning books and talking out
against targeting specifically books that have to do with the
LGBTQ community, or books that have to do with immigrants,
(05:17):
or books that have to do with the racial history
in the United States. Those are the kinds of books
that were being targeted, and so we decided that we
were going to fight that. And then I got up
my hands on the revolution and I was like, here
we go. We're going to put this face to the
movement and I okay. So one of the things that
we did we didn't just we don't just show up
(05:39):
at board meetings. We as a group decided we were
going to get on the school based decision making councils
for all the schools that we can. So I'm currently
sitting on my daughter's school based decision making council. But
that's not enough.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Now I got connections with the principal, but who are
the superintendent, who are these other people? So I joined
another program called the District Ambassador program. That is the baby,
the rain child of our superintendent. And he doesn't want
anything terrible to happen to this program. So it's really
uncomfortable for him when I show up at these meetings
and say things like, what about SB one fifties implementation
(06:13):
in our schools. Whenever you're trying to talk about inclusivity programs,
you're doing right. He doesn't want to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
There is that the program that is on because we
were pushed to her by the Board of Education when
we asked to like talk to someone in the school.
They're like, here's a black person that is an ambassador,
and I'll be honest. She was very much like, look,
I sit here and I am the mouthpiece and we
(06:40):
don't care about this. And I felt that that was
sort of why she was chosen, was to be a
blackface that would go along with it. I mean, do
you feel like I mean you said, you know, when
you push back, that's an uncomfortable thing for the superintendent.
So like it was the do you feel like the
intent was just to have a group of people who
could make this look good even with the.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, sort of dirty laundry that the schools have.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
This district and Ambassador program is absolutely designed to make
the school look good. It is a photo opportunity for
the super out with parents being like, Hey, this is
how the transportation department works and this is how the
funny and.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
That's all great. I love that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I love to know that, but also let's talk about
the real stuff, like the implementation of these horrible legislative,
hateful legislation that you're putting through.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So those are the real.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Conversations that I want to have with him, and that's
why I joined the program. Currently, I'm knocking doors. I'm
literally going door to door and being like, hey, I'm
a progressive running a progressive nonprofit. Vote for Andy Basheer.
And also, if you want to get involved in any
of the stuff that I'm doing, here's what I'm doing
and here's your opportunity to do it. So we've hit
(07:51):
sixty six thousand doors in Boone County this year, so
we you know, hitting the around run and me and
my kids go out every weekend. We spend Saturday and
Sunday about twenty four hours between the two days hitting
doors between now and the election. So that's the other
way I'm building my little coalition.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's like, I just think incredibly heartening because I think,
you know, the sort of coastal elitism that I maybe
fall into, you know, like from the outside, I tend
to sometimes forget that like that is actually how things
get done, you know, like it requires boots on the ground,
It requires people speaking face to face. It's not about,
(08:34):
you know, just only being online and building those coalitions,
but it's really important to meet people because yeah, like
you know, I grew up in a place where I
didn't feel especially comfortable to speak out about what I
did believe in. And you know, I do know though
that there were others, and had I been more outgoing,
it probably would have been, I think better for all
of us.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I definitely think that specifically with the Rebel, I think
it would be interesting if you have you approached them
and asked them like, hey, let's do like an open
thing where the kids get to decide what the mascot is.
Let's make this an energizing thing for them. Because that's
currently what we're working on in Boone County schools.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
We all agree that, like it would be best if
the students felt like it came from them, or like
it was something they at least had to say in
and especially with like the demographics changing in the school.
Would be the first to tell you, like, this isn't
the place you went to high school in the early
two thousands, Like it is diverse. Now everyone's included, and
I'm like, right, So the last step is to get
rid of this mascot.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's a lot of just.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Like trying to push us away. And I think, you know,
partially I get it. I the principal was my fine
arts teacher in high school, and you know, I didn't
know her especially well, but I know that that's a
very scrutinized position.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
To be in.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And you have very vocal parents who would probably show
up at meetings to be like, I like the Confederacy,
and no one's gonna tell them like that's ignorant. They
stood for something that was like deep human oppression, rape, genocide,
Like you know, they.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Don't care about that. That's their heritage.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And so the nice thing is you do have somebody
that will say that though I would be happy to
go to a Morgan and say those exact words on
your behalf or on the behalf of this movement, because
I don't have any problems saying it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
We'll be back with our next expanded interview after the break.
Next you get to hear a bit more from the
smooth voice of doctor Caleb Smith, who, as we shared
in the podcast, wrote his entire PhD dissertation on the
history of the Rebels mascot in the US and is
an absolute expert on the subject. He kindly gave us
almost forty five minutes of his time to share an
(10:38):
incredibly in depth history that offered me a great personal
education as I embarked on this journey, and I'm glad
we get to highlight some more of his incredible research.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
I love this story. In Kirkland, Washington, Juanita High School
was built in the early seventies and they decided they
were going to do an experimental type of educational system
with really short periods of classes, lots of different classes
in really a varied from the norm. So from that
(11:07):
they decided to call themselves the Rebels, and they even
adopted like an Eagle as their image, even though they
were called the rebels, so it really rebels against everything.
But by nineteen eighty five there's a Confederate flag on
the front of their yearbook.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, it seems like all roads for rebel lead to
Confederate crap.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
But the sentiment in the American South, especially after Brown
versus Board of Education, was we're going to prevent education,
and we're going to do this in front of you,
but also symbolically through things like adopting a rebel mascot.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Wow, I mean it's fascinating to hear you say that,
because it's like, even now we're in this education war
with books being banned and bathrooms being banned for some
students and all of that, and it's like it seems
like what's old is new again always. So nineteen fifty four,
the Fed say, you guys got to integrate.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Black kids are coming to your schools.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
We see protests with bussing, we see segregation academies. When
you look at the number of schools that become the rebels,
does that follow that same sort of trajectory.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
We really see two waves of this. The first wave
was in the mid late fifties, right after Brown, and
that's mainly public schools, and they're trying to get across that.
I know the FEDS have said that they want to integrate,
but we have this dual system, and the dual system
was separate but definitely unequal. And so what school districts
(12:34):
and cities and states decided to do was, instead of
being separate but unequal, if we make the African American
accommodations comparable to the white ones, they're less prone to
won't to integrate. And so let's merge all the white
schools in our county or in this area and form
a new school and then we'll do the same thing
(12:54):
with the black schools in our county or in our city.
And so from that we'll have separate and equal and
they'll be less wont to try to integrate the schools,
and so the white schools would merge together and they
would become the rebels of Boyle County or whichever county
it was. Into the nineteen sixties, though, it becomes evident
that the states and the school districts will have to integrate.
(13:19):
And with that it's realized, oh no, there's no way
that we can actually persist with this separate but equal,
and however you want to call that of a setup.
And so then they start moving kids to private schools,
especially in the Deep South. We'll see Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi,
(13:39):
Louisiana start constructing these white flight academies from sixty eight
to about seventy two, and their hardline stance was, we
are forming just for white people, and if you are
not white, you cannot come to this school. And here
is our sign to you, this Confederate rebel on the
(14:01):
door saying you cannot come into this school.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, and I mean yeah, I feel like it still
has that same effect, Like when I see it, I'm like, cool,
you guys do not want me here.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That is the subtext.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Can you talk about the original push around the eighties
when schools started to sort of acknowledge that, like this
mascot could be interpreted as an offensive thing to everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Darker than a paper bag, you know, like, what did
that look like?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
And sort of were their legal cases how did people
approach changing the mascot?
Speaker 6 (14:33):
So there were there were several cases in the several
instances in the early nineteen seventies where people started to
challenge that, but it did not come to a head
until the eighties, and the two big most evident causes
of this. One was a man named John Hawkins, who
was the first African American lead cheerleader at the University
of Mississippi. And at that time, they flew the rebel
(14:56):
flag like the Confederate battle flag at the University of
its zippy and he said, I'm not going to carry
that flag. It doesn't represent me and it doesn't represent
what I believe in. I'm not going to do that.
And people were stunned that someone would stand up and
say that, and so that was the first real popular
culture reference to that. But then in the mid eighties,
(15:17):
also you have in Fairfax, Virginia, you have a case
where the principle there realizes that there's a problem that
there are African Americans in the school who don't salute
the flag or don't represent the flag, and this could
cause real issues. Now, Fairfax was a more forward thinking
and progressive town in the eighties than most other places
(15:40):
in the South, and so he bans the Confederate flag
and bans Confederate imagery to try to put out the
fire before it gets too big in the school. And
so from that case went all the way to the
Supreme Court about the question of freedom of speech of
the students compared to trying to prevent problems from occurring
(16:03):
in an educational environment. And so that was the first
real big case that led to this change. There were
other schools that had kind of quietly changed, but not
very often, and so then into the early nineteen nineties,
you'll have a school here and a school there, and
then you'll get to like the Robney King and all that.
(16:25):
That really brought about the question of Okay, we claim
that we are in a post segregation, post racial America,
but we still have these issues. We have race riots
still going on. We have a Confederate battle flag flying
over the capital of South Carolina. Mississippi and Georgia both
(16:46):
have this flag on their state flag. And there are
schools that still use this Confederate imagery all the time.
And so we'll see in through the nineties that there'll
be some schools that will begin to address it. Mainly
outside the America can sell. Yeah, there's more of this,
I don't know, bond to the Colonel rib figure or
(17:07):
the Confederate figure in the South than there is outside.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Of the South.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And when we talk about the fifties and you have
this rebel showing up because they want us in a message.
This is also at the same time that you do
see Confederate monuments going up. You know, there was a
lull after the Civil War. Obviously he gets your ass
handed tea. You don't just like put up a sign.
But once the country is you know saying all right,
(17:34):
like Jim Crow is a problem, and now we need
to start addressing things more directly. And there's the civil
rights movement that is gaining momentum. We see this pushback
and so I kind of want to jump to now.
Twenty twenty was a reckoning of all sorts. We had
COVID Donald Trump was running for president again, and of
course George Floyd sort of ignited the Black Lives Matter
(17:56):
movement and this moment for racial reckoning in the country
and real talk about meritocracy and diversity and who we
want to be. And less than four years later, we're
in this backlash.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
We're seeing thin.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Blue line monuments and you know, sort of this trump Ism,
which is really just sort of covert Confederacy warship. Do
you think that we're going to have people regress and
have more rebel mascots, or if people were agreeing to
get rid of a mascot. If that sort of progresses,
do you think it will stop just based on the
history of how it happened last time, or do you
(18:31):
think that, you know, we will continue moving forward.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Since like nineteen ninety five, there have been zero schools
that have added a rebel mascot. Yeah, so from that
we at least see that that's enough of a hot
button issue or a questionable topic that no school since
ninety five has said, you know what, of all the mascots,
we could choose tigers and hawks and bears, we're gonna
(18:55):
go with the rebel because that one just seems really
no like no school has done since ninety five, And
so that shows a little bit of people at least
being cautious of what is actually represented with what they use.
The other part of that, though, is before you get
to twenty twenty, you got to get through twenty fifteen,
(19:15):
and twenty fifteen was the shooting at a Mother e
manual in Charleston and the stuff that came after that
and Charlottesville and everything else. There was that push right
after the shooting in Charleston, where oh, we've got to
make a change, We've got to do something, we really
have to reckon with this, and then it kind of
(19:36):
died down, and then you have this big pushback with Charlottesville,
which really kind of made it evident to people that
there are a lot of white supremacists still out there.
They have a lot of hate and a lot of anger.
And that kind of made America aware that even though
we thought we've moved past this, we really have it.
(19:56):
And so after twenty fifteen, there were several schools because
from say nineteen ninety six on, every year, every other year,
there may be a school that drops a rebel mascot.
So we go from about one hundred and seventy five
or one hundred and eighty schools to about one hundred
and sixty schools that have it about twenty twenty. Most
(20:18):
of those schools, though, changed it after the twenty fifteen
school year after Charleston, and most of those were also
outside of the American South. But then with twenty twenty
and George Floyd again, we see that people again come
to this reckoning of, oh, well, what kind of statement
(20:39):
are we making with this? And we see from not.
From twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one, rebels dropped almost thirty.
They're almost thirty schools in the United States that dropped
the term rebel because they realized this is a term
we don't really want to deal with anymore. In that
(21:00):
I've also classified and looked at what they're using their
term rebel. But from there we're also using what image. Yeah,
and so in twenty nineteen there were sixty eight Confederate
rebel mascots. In twenty twenty one, there's forty five.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
So even the schools that are retaining the term rebel,
they're getting rid of their Confederate iconography. And it's not
just schools in Minnesota or in Colorado. It's schools in Mississippi,
in Louisiana and Alabama that are too. So I mean,
if Mississippi can change mis flag, it kind of shows
you whoa whoa. You know, if they're changing their flag,
(21:39):
there's something really serious that we need to look at
here and address this whole issue.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, and I'm glad that you name check Mississippi. I
know that you are there. But also, like when I
look back at the civil rights movement and I have
a dream speech.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
No one ever quotes the part where Martin Luther King.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Specifically calls out Mississippi for his racism, Like so, just
for context, like this is historically a place where it's
like chattel, slavery, racism, lack of representation for black people
in government. That would be the hotbed of the country
for it. So to your point, yes, the Deep South.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Has had this reckoning.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I'm curious what you think the reason is In a
place like Kentucky that did not fight for the Confederacy,
why even if they got rid of the mascot, they
would want to hold on to the rebel name.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
Part of that comes from legacies and also from alumni,
so alumni play a big role in the meaning of
these decisions. This is not the first time I've been
asked or even talk to someone about changing a mascot.
And usually it's the old timers, the folks that used
to be here that are once a rebel, always a rebel,
(22:49):
is the term they like to use to describe this.
But in that there's also an opportunity for the students
who are there to set up a legacy, to start
a new image that they can look back on and
go you know what, we changed it. We moved from
that to that. So in Kentucky, the rebel I mean
(23:10):
there were people in Kentucky that fault for the Confederacy, yes,
but there are also others that fault for the Union.
But there comes a point where that rebellious image moves
away from the Confederacy and migrates more into a white
supremacy or just hey, African Americans and other brown people
(23:32):
stay out of our area sort of idealism. And it's
linked to power. It's linked to this reminder of remember
who's in charge. It are people who are in charge,
not your people. And then when you get to the
internet presence of schools, in public schools still have an
Internet presence, and that's how they build fan bases. But
(23:55):
that's also how when people move into an area, they're
going to do an Internet search and they're going to
fig figure out what this school is or what that
school is. And if I'm African American, I moved to
a place and I see this school is the rebels,
I want to be a little nervous about having my
kid go there. Absolutely, there's a school in Texas called
Evadell and Evadelle is probably the most egregious of the
(24:18):
rebel schools that I know. Their school emblem is the
Confederate battle flag as like a S. And it got
so bad that Google actually pulled their school website for
being a hate speech site because of that image of
the Confederate battle flag.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Damn, damn.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
And that's what I'm saying, like, if the Internet can
I can recognize this, why is it like rocket science
for some educators? If the Internet is saying, hey, we
actually have to flag this, and that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I was using an AI generator trying to see.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
What a rebel without a caused mascot would even look like,
and I got flagged.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
They were like, you're trying to make some racist crap.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I think that there's like a level of just.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Like computer learning that already understands, you know, like this
is the intent behind this image, because we've seen it
in so many manifestos, and yet we have people earnestly
pushing back, is there a future without this crap?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
Yes? There is. And I'll go back to the state
flag of Mississippi because in two thousand and one, we
had an election where we voted on whether we wanted
to keep the old Confederate battle flag on our state
flag or not. And so that in that election, it's
like almost two to one, we voted to keep the
old Confederate flag. Well, fast forward nineteen years, we had
(25:42):
another vote in twenty twenty, and in that vote two
to one in favor of a new flag instead of
no flag at all. And so from that we see
that the younger people who grow up in an integrated society,
they go to school with people of other ethnicities and
other races, that they are more willing to realize that
(26:04):
maybe this whole thing is not about me and my
race or however you want to find that, and instead,
let's see if we can include other people. Let's check
our racism at the door and see if we can
figure out, you know, is this really a good symbol
of everyone of the people of this school, district, or county,
(26:27):
or state or whatever. So there is hope.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Our final expanded interview is right after the break, when
I sat down to talk with journalists and activist Jamel Hill.
We were at a pretty low point in our process.
It felt like reaching Sean Alexander was an impossibility, and
we'd started to see what felt like a total stoppage
of progress towards change. However, after speaking with Jamel, I
(26:53):
felt such a new energy and hope for what was possible.
I wish he could coach me through every tough moment
in life. But for now, I hope you enjoy hearing
a bit more from our inspiring conversation.
Speaker 7 (27:09):
Sports, politics, race, gender culture always have mixed, you know together.
I mean, Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in nineteen
forty seven. That was twenty years before we got the
Civil Rights Act, okay, And it's like often sports has
been placed in the intersection of these monumental changes, if
not led the way when it comes to change. And
one of the reasons I do write about the intersection
(27:31):
with sports and everything else. And we'll be having a
podcast coming out about politics specifically, thank you. But the
reason I write about it is because we're very segregated society.
Sports is actually one of the few activities Americans still
do together. You know, the Olympics are going on as
if we were requiring this podcast. Everybody and a mama,
(27:53):
regardless of economics, regardless of rage, gender, all room for
some own biles. So that's the entry point that sports
gives you is that you can have different people across
different backgrounds who are a fan of the same thing,
and if that issue that maybe they feel apathetic toward,
or maybe they feel one particular way about. If that
(28:16):
issue inter sports, they're able to see the issue much
clearer I think than they would maybe into some other
places that they might in society. So writing about sports
in that manner, talking about sports in that manner was always,
you know, important to me because I saw how powerful
those intersections could be.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Is there a real upside to speaking up in sports?
And obviously, like I think that, like you're saying, like
the Olympics are an outliar, I would say, also like
the NBA allows their players to be much more vocal.
But like in your mind, is there's still an upside
to speaking out?
Speaker 7 (28:55):
Well, I think I think there is upside, and often
we talk about the downsides. I would argue that black
people are the most patriotic because we're the ones who
have had so many rights denied and yet still fought
for the country anyway.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
I mean, we're the ones.
Speaker 7 (29:14):
I don't say this to certainly be arrogant about it,
or to imply that other marginalized groups aren't working as well.
But we are forcing America to account like, oh no, no,
but you said liberty for all, right, so you mean
all and we're holding them to that. And sometimes there
are people who don't like the fact that we hold
them to that. But I do think the sports audience
(29:37):
has changed. I think they now, especially younger people, they
kind of want to know what these athletes are about.
Like they want to know, do you stand for something
or are you just about making money or what are
you doing beyond that. What I have enjoyed about covering
this generation of athletes is that I don't think that
they are necessarily following that model that sort of my
(29:59):
shortened gave for the the.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Republicans choose too.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
I don't think that today's athlete is really doing that.
I mean that's gen Z in general. It's like they
you know, they're very they're very outspoken with how they
feel about things, and I think that's overall, that's like
a very good thing. Sometimes what prevents people from speaking
out is just feeling ostracized, because then people know, like, oh,
(30:24):
you're right those you just you speak out, you have opinions,
you you're gonna make us challenge something people are hesitant
to change, even though their walll is hell. And when
you become the person who speaks out against something, especially
that's something they look at as traditional, it can go bad.
(30:45):
I get torn about this when I asked, like, should
athletes speak up? Because generally they are afforded with a
platform with a certain amount of privilege that most people
don't have.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
As a journalist is one of the big reasons I
became one.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
It's like your whole your whole ideology should be you're
supposed to afflict the comfortable and.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Comfort the afflicted.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
We learn that a journalism school that is the job,
right and with athletes, that's not necessarily the job. But
they are in a special position, especially as a black athlete,
and especially to be able to have some conversations with
some people who might not ordinarily understand why something is wrong.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
They're in a unique position.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
But even after they have moved on from the game,
there's still business opportunities, there's still alumni connections, there's still
other things that they have to consider. I mean, listen,
there's plenty of days where my Twitter mentions look like
a it is it gets as you're right, you understand it.
(31:48):
And it gets it gets old, I mean it really does.
It gets old, It gets tiring, it gets exhausting. But
I push through because I feel like that the people
that maybe you know, ride in with their hoods into
my mentions. I like to think they're the minority and
there's a majority that's just silent but in agreement, right,
(32:11):
And so I try to kind of keep this in
mind and not let them get what they want, which
is ultimately to keep whiet. The truth is it just
sort of speaks to of the many things that are
wrong in this country, is that, you know, I often
make this comparison to Germany. One anything, well, swastika is
(32:31):
are illegal number one. And any remnants of Adolf Hitler, Yeah,
they tore down.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
They don't have museum statutes.
Speaker 7 (32:39):
You know, they paved over the street where he lived,
no statues.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
They do not do that.
Speaker 7 (32:44):
But only here do we name schools after people who
were traders, after Reece's the bridge that John Lewis, the
Great John Lewis walked over. I need people to look
up who Epipetes is. Emmi Pettes was a like he
was one of the higher ups in the Klan. Why
do we have, and it's even worse that symbolically of
(33:05):
what role that bridge played in the fight for voting rights.
It's like you had, you know, hundreds of black peaceful
protesters who were John Lewis among them, who were nearly
killed on that bridge trying to get advocate for black
people to have voting rights.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
So again, why do we have a bridge righted after him?
Speaker 7 (33:25):
And you could go anywhere in America, whether it be
a school, a church, a street.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
We don't denounce our racism. We build monuments to it.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I know in my heart you understand the Rebels is
a racist team name like we had a Confederate General
mascot named mister Rebel.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
There was no confusing what the intention was there.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And so whether Sean admits it or is willing to
fight for the change or not, we understand that that
is true. So do you have any words of encouragement
for me or for someone else trying to change a
mascot to keep going in pursuit of something better, for
the students of Booon County High School and just people
who want to be sports fans in general.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
Well, you said the number one piece of advice is
to keep going and I know that seems like really
simple words, but they're powerful words because a lot of
things don't happen because it was hard to muster up
the resolve to continue to do something.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
That was always going to be a fight.
Speaker 7 (34:22):
What you are doing trying to do is difficult, but
that's okay. But that's also why you need to keep going,
and more importantly, have people who are supportive around you,
who as you go through the layers of this fight,
that will give you the fuel to continue it. Somebody
has heard you, for sure, somebody will hear you. And
(34:43):
you also want to think about these next generation of students,
like you were a student that had to live under
the guys of this awful racist nickname and mascot. Maybe
there is a student that will graduate twenty years from
now that will not be their reality. Maybe thirty forty years,
thirty forty years from now, a student will say, what.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
They really did my dream right right? It's like maybe.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
And that's what this has got to be about, is
when it comes to these fights, it's not just about us.
It's about how this isn't impacting the generations after us,
and those generations are looking at us, they're going to
want to know.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
What did you do to stop this?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
What did you do?
Speaker 7 (35:26):
How did you stand in these fork in the road moments?
And you can say I stood against this, I didn't
want this, and I tried to galmanize others to do it.
So keep going, continue to shield yourself with the supportive tribe,
and know that what you're doing it's going to change
(35:48):
the trajectory for somebody. Somebody one day is never going
to see that rest.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Even sharing these expanded interviews can't begin to cover how
many people were generous enough to share their time. I'm
their expertise, their support and general excitement for my journey.
I have met some incredible people throughout this process and
will be forever grateful to everyone who participated in my
biscuit fueled quest for positive change. Rebel Spirit is a
(36:17):
production of Ninth Planet Audio and association.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
With iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
Reporting and writing by me Akuila Hughes.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I'm also an executive producer and the host. Produced by
Dan Sinker, edited by Josie A.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Zahm Our.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Assistant editor is Jennifer Dean.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by
Josie azam Our. Production coordinator is Kyle Hinton, Our clearance
coordinator is Anna Sun and Shine production accounting by Dill Pretzing,
additional research support from Janis Dillard. Special thanks to Jay
Becker and the whole team at BLDG, the Florence Yawls,
Amber Hoffmann and Leslie Chambers. Executive producers for Ninth Planet
(36:57):
Audio are Elizabeth Baquett and Jimmy Miller
Speaker 1 (37:02):
To
My own black a dollar has gone on overlining.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I ninth Planet Audio dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
We're overlining, You're going over.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
We are back today with another bonus episode and a
quick update before the holidays. Since our last episode, we've
continued to follow up with BHS and the school board
for any updates on progress and changing the mascot. Unfortunately,
we don't have a ton of updates to report as
of now, but we are going to keep pushing and
planning on a bigger update episode for you all in
(00:42):
the new year. Until then, feel free to keep reaching
out to the various stakeholders with your words of encouragement
for changing the mascot. Every single nudge helps. Also, if
you're looking for holiday gifts, be sure to check out
the Rebel Spirit Shop online at Rebelspiritshop dot myshopify dot
com and we also have the link in the show notes.
(01:02):
And now, we hope you enjoy this bonus episode featuring
some expanded interviews, and I'd like to wish you a
happy holidays from the entire Rebel Spirit team.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
I was a lady rebel, Like, what does.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That even mean?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County rebels
with the image.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Of right here in black and white and friends, am.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I figures is a flag or mascot.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to
be ready for a serious.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Backlash from Ninth Planet Audio.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I'm Akhila Hughes and this is Rebel Spirit Extended Interviews.
When I embarked on this journey of change, I knew
that I would want to talk to a lot of
different people along the way. In the year plus that
we've been working on this podcast, I was lucky enough
to have dozens of interviews, and of course we were
only able to feature a few minutes of what sometimes
(02:01):
ended up being thirty to forty five minute conversations. In
this episode, I wanted to offer some expanded interviews from
three conversations that really stuck with me during the process
of making Rebel Spirit. First, you get to hear a
bit more from Amber Hoffman, who is one of our
first allies on the ground in Florence and has continued
to be a huge source of support for us. I
(02:22):
wanted you to hear more about her organization's fight against
Moms for Liberty. Though we didn't interact much with the
local Moms for Liberty chapter. They have been a hindrance
toward progress for much of what Amber cares about.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So I have a fifteen year old son and a
thirteen year old daughter. My daughter identifies as PAM. My
son is sis like white gender, all of that. He's
the exact stereotype, but he's he's so much evolved like
they this generation below me the most involved. They care
about these things. Like my son, but one of his
(02:54):
best friends is trans. So we'd go and do all
of the activism for this because I'm trying to make
it a safe space for not just my kids, but
all of the kids that live here.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Absolutely awesome, awesome, all right, So tell us a little
bit about the revolution or.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
The Kentucky Like, how did that come together?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
What are you all about?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
A friend of mine was actually she started the revolution
and she decided to run for office this year, so
she had to hand over the reins of this nonprofit
and she contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested,
and I was like, I guess.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So we are awesome.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
You know, we met you at the school board meeting
we went to in Boone County in September, where several
people including some current students, gave really passionate commentary, you know,
asking for respect and fairness when implementing the SBU one
fifty law in schools. So what are you all trying
to achieve? And have you had any wins?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So we started the board meeting portion of what we
do and let me just back up a little bit
about their Revolutions Act. In all of this, we have
decided to take on Moms for Liberty. We have a
chapter of Moms for Liberty that is operating in county.
So Moms for Liberty has been a pretty big or
(04:13):
the women, they're all the same people. They basically our
local Republican Party, the Moms for Liberty nonprofit, and another
nonprofit called We the people that are operating in Boone
County all are the same individuals, you know, we all
wear his same has. I'm a Democrat on the Executive Committee,
but I'm also the revolution here and I'm also just
(04:35):
a random lady that shows up and does them. So
these women have really been there's two or three of
them that have really been the face of pushing this
kind of hateful legislation and they've done a fantastic job.
But they've attached themselves to our state representative, Steve Browlings.
He helps sponsor some of the more heinous bills that
they've been trying to put through SB one fifty, for example.
(04:57):
The chair of Moms for Liberty is one of the
board members. We found out about them November twenty twenty two,
and that's when I started showing up at the board
meetings and talking out against banning books and talking out
against targeting specifically books that have to do with the
LGBTQ community, or books that have to do with immigrants,
(05:17):
or books that have to do with the racial history
in the United States. Those are the kinds of books
that were being targeted, and so we decided that we
were going to fight that. And then I got up
my hands on the revolution and I was like, here
we go. We're going to put this face to the
movement and I okay. So one of the things that
we did we didn't just we don't just show up
(05:39):
at board meetings. We as a group decided we were
going to get on the school based decision making councils
for all the schools that we can. So I'm currently
sitting on my daughter's school based decision making council. But
that's not enough.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Now I got connections with the principal, but who are
the superintendent, who are these other people? So I joined
another program called the District Ambassador program. That is the baby,
the rain child of our superintendent. And he doesn't want
anything terrible to happen to this program. So it's really
uncomfortable for him when I show up at these meetings
and say things like, what about SB one fifties implementation
(06:13):
in our schools. Whenever you're trying to talk about inclusivity programs,
you're doing right. He doesn't want to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
There is that the program that is on because we
were pushed to her by the Board of Education when
we asked to like talk to someone in the school.
They're like, here's a black person that is an ambassador,
and I'll be honest. She was very much like, look,
I sit here and I am the mouthpiece and we
(06:40):
don't care about this. And I felt that that was
sort of why she was chosen, was to be a
blackface that would go along with it. I mean, do
you feel like I mean you said, you know, when
you push back, that's an uncomfortable thing for the superintendent.
So like it was the do you feel like the
intent was just to have a group of people who
could make this look good even with the.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, sort of dirty laundry that the schools have.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
This district and Ambassador program is absolutely designed to make
the school look good. It is a photo opportunity for
the super out with parents being like, Hey, this is
how the transportation department works and this is how the
funny and.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
That's all great. I love that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I love to know that, but also let's talk about
the real stuff, like the implementation of these horrible legislative,
hateful legislation that you're putting through.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So those are the real.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Conversations that I want to have with him, and that's
why I joined the program. Currently, I'm knocking doors. I'm
literally going door to door and being like, hey, I'm
a progressive running a progressive nonprofit. Vote for Andy Basheer.
And also, if you want to get involved in any
of the stuff that I'm doing, here's what I'm doing
and here's your opportunity to do it. So we've hit
(07:51):
sixty six thousand doors in Boone County this year, so
we you know, hitting the around run and me and
my kids go out every weekend. We spend Saturday and
Sunday about twenty four hours between the two days hitting
doors between now and the election. So that's the other
way I'm building my little coalition.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's like, I just think incredibly heartening because I think,
you know, the sort of coastal elitism that I maybe
fall into, you know, like from the outside, I tend
to sometimes forget that like that is actually how things
get done, you know, like it requires boots on the ground,
It requires people speaking face to face. It's not about,
(08:34):
you know, just only being online and building those coalitions,
but it's really important to meet people because yeah, like
you know, I grew up in a place where I
didn't feel especially comfortable to speak out about what I
did believe in. And you know, I do know though
that there were others, and had I been more outgoing,
it probably would have been, I think better for all
of us.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I definitely think that specifically with the Rebel, I think
it would be interesting if you have you approached them
and asked them like, hey, let's do like an open
thing where the kids get to decide what the mascot is.
Let's make this an energizing thing for them. Because that's
currently what we're working on in Boone County schools.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
We all agree that, like it would be best if
the students felt like it came from them, or like
it was something they at least had to say in
and especially with like the demographics changing in the school.
Would be the first to tell you, like, this isn't
the place you went to high school in the early
two thousands, Like it is diverse. Now everyone's included, and
I'm like, right, So the last step is to get
rid of this mascot.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's a lot of just.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Like trying to push us away. And I think, you know,
partially I get it. I the principal was my fine
arts teacher in high school, and you know, I didn't
know her especially well, but I know that that's a
very scrutinized position.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
To be in.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And you have very vocal parents who would probably show
up at meetings to be like, I like the Confederacy,
and no one's gonna tell them like that's ignorant. They
stood for something that was like deep human oppression, rape, genocide,
Like you know, they.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Don't care about that. That's their heritage.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And so the nice thing is you do have somebody
that will say that though I would be happy to
go to a Morgan and say those exact words on
your behalf or on the behalf of this movement, because
I don't have any problems saying it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
We'll be back with our next expanded interview after the break.
Next you get to hear a bit more from the
smooth voice of doctor Caleb Smith, who, as we shared
in the podcast, wrote his entire PhD dissertation on the
history of the Rebels mascot in the US and is
an absolute expert on the subject. He kindly gave us
almost forty five minutes of his time to share an
(10:38):
incredibly in depth history that offered me a great personal
education as I embarked on this journey, and I'm glad
we get to highlight some more of his incredible research.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
I love this story. In Kirkland, Washington, Juanita High School
was built in the early seventies and they decided they
were going to do an experimental type of educational system
with really short periods of classes, lots of different classes
in really a varied from the norm. So from that
(11:07):
they decided to call themselves the Rebels, and they even
adopted like an Eagle as their image, even though they
were called the rebels, so it really rebels against everything.
But by nineteen eighty five there's a Confederate flag on
the front of their yearbook.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, it seems like all roads for rebel lead to
Confederate crap.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
But the sentiment in the American South, especially after Brown
versus Board of Education, was we're going to prevent education,
and we're going to do this in front of you,
but also symbolically through things like adopting a rebel mascot.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Wow, I mean it's fascinating to hear you say that,
because it's like, even now we're in this education war
with books being banned and bathrooms being banned for some
students and all of that, and it's like it seems
like what's old is new again always. So nineteen fifty four,
the Fed say, you guys got to integrate.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Black kids are coming to your schools.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
We see protests with bussing, we see segregation academies. When
you look at the number of schools that become the rebels,
does that follow that same sort of trajectory.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
We really see two waves of this. The first wave
was in the mid late fifties, right after Brown, and
that's mainly public schools, and they're trying to get across that.
I know the FEDS have said that they want to integrate,
but we have this dual system, and the dual system
was separate but definitely unequal. And so what school districts
(12:34):
and cities and states decided to do was, instead of
being separate but unequal, if we make the African American
accommodations comparable to the white ones, they're less prone to
won't to integrate. And so let's merge all the white
schools in our county or in this area and form
a new school and then we'll do the same thing
(12:54):
with the black schools in our county or in our city.
And so from that we'll have separate and equal and
they'll be less wont to try to integrate the schools,
and so the white schools would merge together and they
would become the rebels of Boyle County or whichever county
it was. Into the nineteen sixties, though, it becomes evident
that the states and the school districts will have to integrate.
(13:19):
And with that it's realized, oh no, there's no way
that we can actually persist with this separate but equal,
and however you want to call that of a setup.
And so then they start moving kids to private schools,
especially in the Deep South. We'll see Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi,
(13:39):
Louisiana start constructing these white flight academies from sixty eight
to about seventy two, and their hardline stance was, we
are forming just for white people, and if you are
not white, you cannot come to this school. And here
is our sign to you, this Confederate rebel on the
(14:01):
door saying you cannot come into this school.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, and I mean yeah, I feel like it still
has that same effect, Like when I see it, I'm like, cool,
you guys do not want me here.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That is the subtext.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Can you talk about the original push around the eighties
when schools started to sort of acknowledge that, like this
mascot could be interpreted as an offensive thing to everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Darker than a paper bag, you know, like, what did
that look like?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
And sort of were their legal cases how did people
approach changing the mascot?
Speaker 6 (14:33):
So there were there were several cases in the several
instances in the early nineteen seventies where people started to
challenge that, but it did not come to a head
until the eighties, and the two big most evident causes
of this. One was a man named John Hawkins, who
was the first African American lead cheerleader at the University
of Mississippi. And at that time, they flew the rebel
(14:56):
flag like the Confederate battle flag at the University of
its zippy and he said, I'm not going to carry
that flag. It doesn't represent me and it doesn't represent
what I believe in. I'm not going to do that.
And people were stunned that someone would stand up and
say that, and so that was the first real popular
culture reference to that. But then in the mid eighties,
(15:17):
also you have in Fairfax, Virginia, you have a case
where the principle there realizes that there's a problem that
there are African Americans in the school who don't salute
the flag or don't represent the flag, and this could
cause real issues. Now, Fairfax was a more forward thinking
and progressive town in the eighties than most other places
(15:40):
in the South, and so he bans the Confederate flag
and bans Confederate imagery to try to put out the
fire before it gets too big in the school. And
so from that case went all the way to the
Supreme Court about the question of freedom of speech of
the students compared to trying to prevent problems from occurring
(16:03):
in an educational environment. And so that was the first
real big case that led to this change. There were
other schools that had kind of quietly changed, but not
very often, and so then into the early nineteen nineties,
you'll have a school here and a school there, and
then you'll get to like the Robney King and all that.
(16:25):
That really brought about the question of Okay, we claim
that we are in a post segregation, post racial America,
but we still have these issues. We have race riots
still going on. We have a Confederate battle flag flying
over the capital of South Carolina. Mississippi and Georgia both
(16:46):
have this flag on their state flag. And there are
schools that still use this Confederate imagery all the time.
And so we'll see in through the nineties that there'll
be some schools that will begin to address it. Mainly
outside the America can sell. Yeah, there's more of this,
I don't know, bond to the Colonel rib figure or
(17:07):
the Confederate figure in the South than there is outside.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Of the South.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And when we talk about the fifties and you have
this rebel showing up because they want us in a message.
This is also at the same time that you do
see Confederate monuments going up. You know, there was a
lull after the Civil War. Obviously he gets your ass
handed tea. You don't just like put up a sign.
But once the country is you know saying all right,
(17:34):
like Jim Crow is a problem, and now we need
to start addressing things more directly. And there's the civil
rights movement that is gaining momentum. We see this pushback
and so I kind of want to jump to now.
Twenty twenty was a reckoning of all sorts. We had
COVID Donald Trump was running for president again, and of
course George Floyd sort of ignited the Black Lives Matter
(17:56):
movement and this moment for racial reckoning in the country
and real talk about meritocracy and diversity and who we
want to be. And less than four years later, we're
in this backlash.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
We're seeing thin.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Blue line monuments and you know, sort of this trump Ism,
which is really just sort of covert Confederacy warship. Do
you think that we're going to have people regress and
have more rebel mascots, or if people were agreeing to
get rid of a mascot. If that sort of progresses,
do you think it will stop just based on the
history of how it happened last time, or do you
(18:31):
think that, you know, we will continue moving forward.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Since like nineteen ninety five, there have been zero schools
that have added a rebel mascot. Yeah, so from that
we at least see that that's enough of a hot
button issue or a questionable topic that no school since
ninety five has said, you know what, of all the mascots,
we could choose tigers and hawks and bears, we're gonna
(18:55):
go with the rebel because that one just seems really
no like no school has done since ninety five, And
so that shows a little bit of people at least
being cautious of what is actually represented with what they use.
The other part of that, though, is before you get
to twenty twenty, you got to get through twenty fifteen,
(19:15):
and twenty fifteen was the shooting at a Mother e
manual in Charleston and the stuff that came after that
and Charlottesville and everything else. There was that push right
after the shooting in Charleston, where oh, we've got to
make a change, We've got to do something, we really
have to reckon with this, and then it kind of
(19:36):
died down, and then you have this big pushback with Charlottesville,
which really kind of made it evident to people that
there are a lot of white supremacists still out there.
They have a lot of hate and a lot of anger.
And that kind of made America aware that even though
we thought we've moved past this, we really have it.
(19:56):
And so after twenty fifteen, there were several schools because
from say nineteen ninety six on, every year, every other year,
there may be a school that drops a rebel mascot.
So we go from about one hundred and seventy five
or one hundred and eighty schools to about one hundred
and sixty schools that have it about twenty twenty. Most
(20:18):
of those schools, though, changed it after the twenty fifteen
school year after Charleston, and most of those were also
outside of the American South. But then with twenty twenty
and George Floyd again, we see that people again come
to this reckoning of, oh, well, what kind of statement
(20:39):
are we making with this? And we see from not.
From twenty nineteen to twenty twenty one, rebels dropped almost thirty.
They're almost thirty schools in the United States that dropped
the term rebel because they realized this is a term
we don't really want to deal with anymore. In that
(21:00):
I've also classified and looked at what they're using their
term rebel. But from there we're also using what image. Yeah,
and so in twenty nineteen there were sixty eight Confederate
rebel mascots. In twenty twenty one, there's forty five.
Speaker 7 (21:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
So even the schools that are retaining the term rebel,
they're getting rid of their Confederate iconography. And it's not
just schools in Minnesota or in Colorado. It's schools in Mississippi,
in Louisiana and Alabama that are too. So I mean,
if Mississippi can change mis flag, it kind of shows
you whoa whoa. You know, if they're changing their flag,
(21:39):
there's something really serious that we need to look at
here and address this whole issue.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, and I'm glad that you name check Mississippi. I
know that you are there. But also, like when I
look back at the civil rights movement and I have
a dream speech.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
No one ever quotes the part where Martin Luther King.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Specifically calls out Mississippi for his racism, Like so, just
for context, like this is historically a place where it's
like chattel, slavery, racism, lack of representation for black people
in government. That would be the hotbed of the country
for it. So to your point, yes, the Deep South.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Has had this reckoning.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I'm curious what you think the reason is In a
place like Kentucky that did not fight for the Confederacy,
why even if they got rid of the mascot, they
would want to hold on to the rebel name.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
Part of that comes from legacies and also from alumni,
so alumni play a big role in the meaning of
these decisions. This is not the first time I've been
asked or even talk to someone about changing a mascot.
And usually it's the old timers, the folks that used
to be here that are once a rebel, always a rebel,
(22:49):
is the term they like to use to describe this.
But in that there's also an opportunity for the students
who are there to set up a legacy, to start
a new image that they can look back on and
go you know what, we changed it. We moved from
that to that. So in Kentucky, the rebel I mean
(23:10):
there were people in Kentucky that fault for the Confederacy, yes,
but there are also others that fault for the Union.
But there comes a point where that rebellious image moves
away from the Confederacy and migrates more into a white
supremacy or just hey, African Americans and other brown people
(23:32):
stay out of our area sort of idealism. And it's
linked to power. It's linked to this reminder of remember
who's in charge. It are people who are in charge,
not your people. And then when you get to the
internet presence of schools, in public schools still have an
Internet presence, and that's how they build fan bases. But
(23:55):
that's also how when people move into an area, they're
going to do an Internet search and they're going to
fig figure out what this school is or what that
school is. And if I'm African American, I moved to
a place and I see this school is the rebels,
I want to be a little nervous about having my
kid go there. Absolutely, there's a school in Texas called
Evadell and Evadelle is probably the most egregious of the
(24:18):
rebel schools that I know. Their school emblem is the
Confederate battle flag as like a S. And it got
so bad that Google actually pulled their school website for
being a hate speech site because of that image of
the Confederate battle flag.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Damn, damn.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
And that's what I'm saying, like, if the Internet can
I can recognize this, why is it like rocket science
for some educators? If the Internet is saying, hey, we
actually have to flag this, and that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I was using an AI generator trying to see.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
What a rebel without a caused mascot would even look like,
and I got flagged.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
They were like, you're trying to make some racist crap.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I think that there's like a level of just.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Like computer learning that already understands, you know, like this
is the intent behind this image, because we've seen it
in so many manifestos, and yet we have people earnestly
pushing back, is there a future without this crap?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
Yes? There is. And I'll go back to the state
flag of Mississippi because in two thousand and one, we
had an election where we voted on whether we wanted
to keep the old Confederate battle flag on our state
flag or not. And so that in that election, it's
like almost two to one, we voted to keep the
old Confederate flag. Well, fast forward nineteen years, we had
(25:42):
another vote in twenty twenty, and in that vote two
to one in favor of a new flag instead of
no flag at all. And so from that we see
that the younger people who grow up in an integrated society,
they go to school with people of other ethnicities and
other races, that they are more willing to realize that
(26:04):
maybe this whole thing is not about me and my
race or however you want to find that, and instead,
let's see if we can include other people. Let's check
our racism at the door and see if we can
figure out, you know, is this really a good symbol
of everyone of the people of this school, district, or county,
(26:27):
or state or whatever. So there is hope.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Our final expanded interview is right after the break, when
I sat down to talk with journalists and activist Jamel Hill.
We were at a pretty low point in our process.
It felt like reaching Sean Alexander was an impossibility, and
we'd started to see what felt like a total stoppage
of progress towards change. However, after speaking with Jamel, I
(26:53):
felt such a new energy and hope for what was possible.
I wish he could coach me through every tough moment
in life. But for now, I hope you enjoy hearing
a bit more from our inspiring conversation.
Speaker 7 (27:09):
Sports, politics, race, gender culture always have mixed, you know together.
I mean, Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in nineteen
forty seven. That was twenty years before we got the
Civil Rights Act, okay, And it's like often sports has
been placed in the intersection of these monumental changes, if
not led the way when it comes to change. And
one of the reasons I do write about the intersection
(27:31):
with sports and everything else. And we'll be having a
podcast coming out about politics specifically, thank you. But the
reason I write about it is because we're very segregated society.
Sports is actually one of the few activities Americans still
do together. You know, the Olympics are going on as
if we were requiring this podcast. Everybody and a mama,
(27:53):
regardless of economics, regardless of rage, gender, all room for
some own biles. So that's the entry point that sports
gives you is that you can have different people across
different backgrounds who are a fan of the same thing,
and if that issue that maybe they feel apathetic toward,
or maybe they feel one particular way about. If that
(28:16):
issue inter sports, they're able to see the issue much
clearer I think than they would maybe into some other
places that they might in society. So writing about sports
in that manner, talking about sports in that manner was always,
you know, important to me because I saw how powerful
those intersections could be.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Is there a real upside to speaking up in sports?
And obviously, like I think that, like you're saying, like
the Olympics are an outliar, I would say, also like
the NBA allows their players to be much more vocal.
But like in your mind, is there's still an upside
to speaking out?
Speaker 7 (28:55):
Well, I think I think there is upside, and often
we talk about the downsides. I would argue that black
people are the most patriotic because we're the ones who
have had so many rights denied and yet still fought
for the country anyway.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
I mean, we're the ones.
Speaker 7 (29:14):
I don't say this to certainly be arrogant about it,
or to imply that other marginalized groups aren't working as well.
But we are forcing America to account like, oh no, no,
but you said liberty for all, right, so you mean
all and we're holding them to that. And sometimes there
are people who don't like the fact that we hold
them to that. But I do think the sports audience
(29:37):
has changed. I think they now, especially younger people, they
kind of want to know what these athletes are about.
Like they want to know, do you stand for something
or are you just about making money or what are
you doing beyond that. What I have enjoyed about covering
this generation of athletes is that I don't think that
they are necessarily following that model that sort of my
(29:59):
shortened gave for the the.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Republicans choose too.
Speaker 7 (30:04):
I don't think that today's athlete is really doing that.
I mean that's gen Z in general. It's like they
you know, they're very they're very outspoken with how they
feel about things, and I think that's overall, that's like
a very good thing. Sometimes what prevents people from speaking
out is just feeling ostracized, because then people know, like, oh,
(30:24):
you're right those you just you speak out, you have opinions,
you you're gonna make us challenge something people are hesitant
to change, even though their walll is hell. And when
you become the person who speaks out against something, especially
that's something they look at as traditional, it can go bad.
(30:45):
I get torn about this when I asked, like, should
athletes speak up? Because generally they are afforded with a
platform with a certain amount of privilege that most people
don't have.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
As a journalist is one of the big reasons I
became one.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
It's like your whole your whole ideology should be you're
supposed to afflict the comfortable and.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Comfort the afflicted.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
We learn that a journalism school that is the job,
right and with athletes, that's not necessarily the job. But
they are in a special position, especially as a black athlete,
and especially to be able to have some conversations with
some people who might not ordinarily understand why something is wrong.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
They're in a unique position.
Speaker 7 (31:28):
But even after they have moved on from the game,
there's still business opportunities, there's still alumni connections, there's still
other things that they have to consider. I mean, listen,
there's plenty of days where my Twitter mentions look like
a it is it gets as you're right, you understand it.
(31:48):
And it gets it gets old, I mean it really does.
It gets old, It gets tiring, it gets exhausting. But
I push through because I feel like that the people
that maybe you know, ride in with their hoods into
my mentions. I like to think they're the minority and
there's a majority that's just silent but in agreement, right,
(32:11):
And so I try to kind of keep this in
mind and not let them get what they want, which
is ultimately to keep whiet. The truth is it just
sort of speaks to of the many things that are
wrong in this country, is that, you know, I often
make this comparison to Germany. One anything, well, swastika is
(32:31):
are illegal number one. And any remnants of Adolf Hitler, Yeah,
they tore down.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
They don't have museum statutes.
Speaker 7 (32:39):
You know, they paved over the street where he lived,
no statues.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
They do not do that.
Speaker 7 (32:44):
But only here do we name schools after people who
were traders, after Reece's the bridge that John Lewis, the
Great John Lewis walked over. I need people to look
up who Epipetes is. Emmi Pettes was a like he
was one of the higher ups in the Klan. Why
do we have, and it's even worse that symbolically of
(33:05):
what role that bridge played in the fight for voting rights.
It's like you had, you know, hundreds of black peaceful
protesters who were John Lewis among them, who were nearly
killed on that bridge trying to get advocate for black
people to have voting rights.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
So again, why do we have a bridge righted after him?
Speaker 7 (33:25):
And you could go anywhere in America, whether it be
a school, a church, a street.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
We don't denounce our racism. We build monuments to it.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I know in my heart you understand the Rebels is
a racist team name like we had a Confederate General
mascot named mister Rebel.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
There was no confusing what the intention was there.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And so whether Sean admits it or is willing to
fight for the change or not, we understand that that
is true. So do you have any words of encouragement
for me or for someone else trying to change a
mascot to keep going in pursuit of something better, for
the students of Booon County High School and just people
who want to be sports fans in general.
Speaker 7 (34:05):
Well, you said the number one piece of advice is
to keep going and I know that seems like really
simple words, but they're powerful words because a lot of
things don't happen because it was hard to muster up
the resolve to continue to do something.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
That was always going to be a fight.
Speaker 7 (34:22):
What you are doing trying to do is difficult, but
that's okay. But that's also why you need to keep going,
and more importantly, have people who are supportive around you,
who as you go through the layers of this fight,
that will give you the fuel to continue it. Somebody
has heard you, for sure, somebody will hear you. And
(34:43):
you also want to think about these next generation of students,
like you were a student that had to live under
the guys of this awful racist nickname and mascot. Maybe
there is a student that will graduate twenty years from
now that will not be their reality. Maybe thirty forty years,
thirty forty years from now, a student will say, what.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
They really did my dream right right? It's like maybe.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
And that's what this has got to be about, is
when it comes to these fights, it's not just about us.
It's about how this isn't impacting the generations after us,
and those generations are looking at us, they're going to
want to know.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
What did you do to stop this?
Speaker 2 (35:25):
What did you do?
Speaker 7 (35:26):
How did you stand in these fork in the road moments?
And you can say I stood against this, I didn't
want this, and I tried to galmanize others to do it.
So keep going, continue to shield yourself with the supportive tribe,
and know that what you're doing it's going to change
(35:48):
the trajectory for somebody. Somebody one day is never going
to see that rest.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Even sharing these expanded interviews can't begin to cover how
many people were generous enough to share their time. I'm
their expertise, their support and general excitement for my journey.
I have met some incredible people throughout this process and
will be forever grateful to everyone who participated in my
biscuit fueled quest for positive change. Rebel Spirit is a
(36:17):
production of Ninth Planet Audio and association.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
With iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
Reporting and writing by me Akuila Hughes.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I'm also an executive producer and the host. Produced by
Dan Sinker, edited by Josie A.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Zahm Our.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Assistant editor is Jennifer Dean.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Music composed by Charlie Sun, Sound design and mixing by
Josie azam Our. Production coordinator is Kyle Hinton, Our clearance
coordinator is Anna Sun and Shine production accounting by Dill Pretzing,
additional research support from Janis Dillard. Special thanks to Jay
Becker and the whole team at BLDG, the Florence Yawls,
Amber Hoffmann and Leslie Chambers. Executive producers for Ninth Planet
(36:57):
Audio are Elizabeth Baquett and Jimmy Miller
Speaker 1 (37:02):
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