Monday Memory: What Happens When You Ignore the Red Tape

Before I start Monday's Memory, I want to reassure you, I will post about this weekend (I'll be postdating it.)

Also, I want to send my prayers out to everyone at Virginia Tech. One of my friends is dating a guy there -- fortunately, he's okay. Heck, he was probably still on my campus at the time. :P

Today's memory was picked due to it's relevance regarding other current news: this frikkin' Imus scandal. I've expressed in comments on other blogs my opinion regarding this -- an opinion that is not about to change particularly due to the fact that Al Sharpton's attitude reminds me of this situation.

My high school? We were the Rebels. Not that we were always rebellious, (though we could stick it to the man if we wanted to) but that was the name of our team: The Rebels. Always had been, and as far as we were concerned it always would be.

So imagine our surprise when the rumble started. Someone, an alum (who had been known for thriving off of drama), had showed up at a school committee and expressed his opinion that "rebel" was racist, because the Confederacy were called "rebels".
Of course, one of those anti-racism organizations (I can't recall which one, but I know they have had something to do with Jesse Jackson) leapt at the chance to try to force us to change our mascot name. The name they suggested? The Southies. (I'd explain why, but that'd be giving out a little bit more personal information than I want to. :-P Course, this does kind of give away a lot anyways but I'm hoping none of you are psychopaths who will use this to piece together everything else about me :-P?)

So an assembly was held to explain the name change. Obviously the administration was helpless to stop them, and we understood this. They couldn't be like "It's not racist!" because nobody ever agrees that they're racist. Our own beureaucracy was tied up in other people's red tape over this one.
Word flew through the student body. We knew what had to happen.

After about a ten minute conversation about changing the name, where the administration sat down and took the bullshit that was going on without saying anything (the coach was all "I don't want to hurt anyone through the name of my teams, that was never my intention" and that was about as "It's NOT RACIST!" as any of them got.)
Then they opened up for questions, putting a mic down front for people to line up to.
The seating nearly emptied out from everyone standing up. The representative from the anti-racism organization nearly had his eyes pop out of his head, but he was in for a bigger surprise.

"Do you know the definition of rebel?" one person asked.
"Yes, I believe I do," the representative answered.
The student pulled out a dictionary, opened it to a bookmarked page and read: "Rebel. Noun. 1. A person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country, or, 2. a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition." He closed the book. "It didn't say they had to be white or have black slaves."
So there was a resounding cheer.

The next person came up. "You know, the rebels you're thinking of...they were in the South. You know this is Rhode Island, right? We've had rebels here. You know what we were rebelling against? Britain. You might know that little war, we call it 'The American Revolution'."
Resounding cheer.

The next person was one of our black students, actually. And not one who was ever particularly bright (although we had some geniuses that were black, don't get me wrong here!). "I've read a lot about rebels," he said, "In history books. And in newspapers." He pulled some newspaper clippings out of his pocket. "This article is about rebels in the Congo. This one talks about Zimbabwe." And he went on. He had seven articles about rebels in Africa. He finished by saying he was proud to be a rebel, because it meant he was more like the people still in the place his ancestors had come from.
HUUUUUUUUUGE cheer.

Not long after him, was a friend of mine -- obviously Irish in ancestry (if you know what I'm saying -- she totally looked it). She got to the meat of what disturbs me about the attitude of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
"You want us to change our name to Southie," she said, staring the representative straight in the eye, "You're not from around here, right?" From that instant we knew where she was going with this. She was making a point I'd been planning on making, and she was definitely better suited for it. It's pretty common knowledge, at least in the Boston area (including Rhode Island) what Southie means.
"Yes, I am," the representative said.
"Then you know what Southie means. You know that it's a derogatory term for Irish people, don't you?" The term is basically never used now, but it originates from the fact that Irish people used to (especially around the Industrial Revolution) live primarily in South Boston (an area called Southie). "So, I'm wondering," my friend continued, "Does that mean racism only counts if it's white people being racist against black people? Is it okay to be racist towards other groups? Is it okay for you to be prejudiced? It seems like it."
The representative knew he could not deny knowing that term, so he said, "I hadn't thought of that." Which, funnily enough, is the same excuse our administration used. "Southies was just a suggestion."
"And we're just suggesting you leave it as Rebels."
We gave the biggest cheer I've ever heard, and then started into our school's official cheer.

That was pretty much the end of THAT assembly. Needless to say, to this day, my high school is still the Rebels, and I had never been prouder to be one.