When I tell friends my high school graduation mascot was a Confederate soldier, I’m generally asked to repeat myself. Didn’t I say I was from colorado? I did so I am. I’m the actual Antelope Valley, A group of towns in the Mojave Desert about 60 miles north of l. a. That is where, Throughout 2005, I graduated from Quartz Hill senior secondary school, Home coming from the Rebels. Because California has been and stays a symbol of progress in this country, It is simple to forget the state’s complicated history with slavery mario mascot costume. In the state first decade, Pro slavery inhabitants of rural ca has been, Coupled with Spanish speaking Californios, Proposed occurance of a new, Slave owning state split off from north of manchester. With 1859, Gov. Donald B. Weller signed a measure that can be made this a reality and sent it to Washington for approval. If it weren’t for the episode of the Civil War, The proposal probably have passed. Although California allied itself with the Union in the Civil War, Many in mehserle sentencing sympathized with the South, And some even left their state to fight for the Confederacy. A hundred years later, In those same year the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, Quartz Hill High School was established amid arduous legal battles with the county, Which wanted to place the school in unique part of town. The course’s founders fought to keep Quartz Hill on their desired west side, And prevailed.
This legal tenacity was the cause of their nickname, Specific Rebels, That they lent to the school. The Confederate theme using stars and bars waving mascot named Jubilation T. Cornpone, Later replaced by the more generic Johnny Reb emerged as a result fairly anodyne history. And so ashton Reb marched on, Waving his Confederate flag at golf games and pep rallies and on the glossy covers of yearbooks. Any reluctance to remove statues and flags is related to pride. You think that, Who grows to be proud, And what do we want to are proud of? For a ages, At the very least. Slowly the Confederate theme begun to wilt. While using late 1980s, The annual homecoming way of life of Slave Day in which students”Auctioned off of” Other students to make money for clubs was put to rest. Structure mascot, Despite the extremely white community’s support to keep Johnny Reb exactly as he was, Pressure from the NAACP finish his Confederate flags in 1995 https://www.mascotsale.com/cartoon-mascot/mario-mascot-for-sale.html. One woman interviewed at the time explained her anguish at the choice: “I have heritage from them of the Civil War. My Confederate family fought very hard for what they supported. I am happy with them for that. Over back as soon as, I just don’t think that it is easy here to say what is most fair to town, She wasn’t and isn’t alone in that questioning.
Around this writing, The high school’s alumni page on Facebook is constantly on the harvest complaints and lamentations over the mascot change. For ashton Reb, And yet, All weren’t lost: Removed of his name, Flag and pistols, And given new era tricorn hat to obscure his politics https://www.mascotsale.com/animal-mascot/dog-mascot-for-sale.html, The Rebel soldier continued to be the mascot. Despite these posts, My classmates and I never mistook which argument of which war our uniformed man was fighting for. He was really a Rebel, All things considered, Not a Patriot the appropriate name for a soldier in the American Revolution. Only in researching the school years later did I even realize that the mascot was no longer officially linked to the Confederacy. Teenagers can hear all too clearly the dog whistles their politically motivated adult counterparts deny. I’m unfortunately the Rebel was, In some methods, An entirely most acceptable mascot. We were white extraordinary white, Even for the expectations of Antelope Valley. When I managed to graduate in 2005, Just 8% of young people at QHHS were black, While I was among the 70% which white. Electrical systems, Antelope Valley High the local public school without the esteemed intercontinental Baccalaureate program had more black students than white: 33% on to assist you 25%. Graduating stood for African Village. That kids in senior secondary school make racist jokes is not news, But in retrospect surely that our surrounding iconography not only permitted but also encouraged our behavior.