Tascosa High School & Confederate Icons
A Story Of Disguising Symbolic Racism As Heritage & School Spirit
(Updated 6/10/20)
Editorial notes: I wrote this in 2015 after the Charleston church shooting by the white supremacist Dylan Roof spurred a tremendous amount of “debate” about confederate imagery in the U.S. This happened 3 full years after young Trayvon Martin was shot and the #blacklivesmatter movement began. Since then, Black people have continued to experience murder at the hands of police, most of whom continue their police work without consequence. To witness the difference in the treatment of Black people simply trying to live their lives in America, both physically and in discourse, versus the treatment of Dylan Roof even after he’d murdered 9 Black church goers, is disgusting. Our country is profoundly broken and it is our responsibility to end the white supremacy that has broken it. I’ve revisited this essay and taken editorial liberty as my understanding of systemic racism has changed in the last 5 years and my anger has increasingly grown. The core message— that Tascosa High School still has a confederate iconography problem it needs to deal with — has not changed, but my rhetorical process needed some work. It is my profound hope to see all of the school’s iconography completely changed, and not just subtly altered as it has remained. If my words are of any help, I offer them freely.
I’ve read quite a lot of content lately discussing what racism is/isn’t, the nature of white supremacy, and the role of the confederate battle flag in many southern Americans’ expression of “heritage.” This essay will explore a personal connection I have to racist confederate iconography and it’s continued use in my high school alma mater, including the use of the confederate battle flag. It’s worth noting that as of this essay’s editing in 2020, even Mississippi’s state legislature is finally taking up a resolution to remove the use of the confederate battle flag from the field of its state flag (it’s about fucking time). The same flag was adorned on the jacket of Dylann Roof, the murderer of 9 Black Christians in Charleston on June 17, 2015. It has become the de facto flag for white supremacy groups in the US, including the KKK (we’ll get into that). Yet somehow many still consider this flag’s display acceptable on public grounds all across the US in clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. (More on this later).
I want to open the conversation by repeating an idea that is not new, but still seems to elude many — racism is not just an individual’s set of beliefs, but rather a complex matrix of systemic ways that society forces Black bodies to bear the violent brunt of our country’s perceived “success.” America was built on the subjugation and enslavement of Black bodies. Racism, particularly against Black folks, is ingrained in America’s societal fiber, economic dominance, and history. The relationship between the violent racism of the individual and institutional racism perpetuated by the state is one of unity; neither is at all acceptable and both are interconnected, complex, and manifest in many ways that are not readily realized without sober and honest conversations. The fact that demanding the removal of confederate flags or statues is surrounded by any kind of “controversy” is proof enough that there are some deep issues we need to work out before we (meaning white people who still think this isn’t a real issue) can undo our own racist behavior patterns. The removal of blatantly racist icons is not a controversy with substance. It is racism held up by stilts; the primary leg being the idea that “the flag isn’t racist at all — it’s a heritage marker of the south.”
I want to take this opportunity to dispel this misguided idea — that southern heritage is represented by the confederate battle flag. It is nothing more than racism in plain sight and ignorant of impact. All you need to do is read the history to know this.
In case anyone is confused about the founding principles of the confederacy, let’s have a look at a quote from the Texas Ordinance of Secession, which is just one of the many similar secession documents (emphasis my own):
“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.”
It’s worth pointing out that the lower-case “confederacy” in the quote actually refers to the US; they are claiming that the US was founded by whites, for whites, and was going back on its word by daring to try to rid itself of slavery. Herein I will refer to the actual treasonous confederacy of the southern states with a lower case “c” because that body deserves nothing more.
As Coates so well wrote in his masterful 2015 piece in the Atlantic:
Any iconography associated with the antebellum or confederate south is inherently racist. Full stop. Regardless of your position on states’ rights or whether you know the percentage of landowners in the old confederate south who actually held slaves versus those who did not, the fact remains. The war of secession (or the war of southern aggression, as it might be better known) fought in the US was fundamentally about a state’s rights to continue the plantation system, which used slave labor as its primary capital. Enslaved human beings, brought from the African continent, represented a huge economic force that the early capitalists did not want to lose. Their enslavement was justified simply because they had dark skin. This mythical “better world of the old cotton-lands” is the crux of antibellum southern pride and is deeply fucked up.
We live in a time (remember that this was originally written in 2015 and honestly not much had changed since then before the recent nation-wide protests of 2020, which spurred this essay’s editorial moment) when it is imperative that white Americans take a deep look at what they mean when invoking the notion of southern pride. It is unacceptable to tacitly agree with racist ideals that are unanalyzed and simply left on the burner because that’s what was happening when we walked into the kitchen. What is this pride? What does it mean? What is it founded upon? Has confederate imagery ever been symbolism that can be meaningfully extracted from its insidious history?
Setting The Stage
My high school alma mater, Tascosa High School in Amarillo, TX, has long relied on revisionist confederate history for the exact purpose of portraying “heritage” through the use of racist symbols. What’s worse is that enough time has passed with these symbols at the masthead of the school that their meaning has morphed into an embodiment of school spirit and most students today likely don’t recognize the iconography nor its nefarious implications. I can call to memory the general confusion of adolescence, as my formative educational years were spent steeped in these symbols of slavery. I hope this essay contributes to their removal so other kids don’t have the same shoved down their throat when they’re just trying to get by and go to a few school dances. It’s time to clear the air about those old southern ways to give space for new generations to learn properly what happened in this country.
It should also be noted at the outset that I come from a southern plantation owning ancestral line. My great^4 grandfather was a man named David Walker Jr. He was born of an Irish father, also called David, who immigrated to the US after fighting previously in the Irish army and subsequently in the Revolutionary War. David Sr. grew up on the tract of land next to Davy Crockett in Tennessee and family history accounts for the two growing up as friends and hunting partners. It’s real southern stuff.
David Jr. owned a mill and plantation in Linden, Missouri, but his widow moved to Waco, Texas in 1866 due to Civil War sympathies that became “difficult in Missouri.” Ugh. I couldn’t find documentation of the family owning slaves, but the chances are high given their exodus from Missouri immediately following the war.
It’s important to acknowledge one’s own history, especially if it hurts. We cannot help where and how we are born, nor can we change what we’ve done, but if we are privileged enough to be afforded the opportunity to pursue a new path of racial and social justice, there is no ethical or moral choice but to take it. I acknowledge and continue to study my family and personal history growing up in the south with unexamined assumptions about my role as a white person in the communities where I’ve lived. This work will never stop.
For those of you reading who relate, know now that there will be no applause or praise for this or any other anti-racism work that you embark on. That’s not why you need to do it. This isn’t about you. This is about creating a system of basic dignity and decency in our society. This is about creating a world where our children would never dream of adorning a confederate flag because they know what it means from a young age and they recognize how painful it would be for their friends and themselves. This is about fundamentally caring for Black bodies — members of our society upon whom we love and rely. If you’re serious about it, recognize that it’s a life long endeavor and there is no finish line.
The School’s History
Here’s the language on the school’s history copied directly from the official website, emphasis is again my own:
Tascosa High School, opening its doors in 1958, began a spirit of sports enthusiasm by winning a city championship that first year. Since then, a continuing heritage of excellence and tradition have surrounded the red and black rebel. Early school symbols were centered around the Old South, but were eventually replaced by a western image; mascot, General Reb, was replaced by the “Rebel Kid,” and the Confederate flag by their Rebel flag. The cannon, donated to the school exactly 100 years after Texas entered the Civil War, stands in the school commons, a silent symbol of the school’s rich heritage.
The only piece missing is that the original school song was the “Dixie” fight song, but was later changed to the University of Texas fight song (a school that is dealing with its own confederate history in a controversy surrounding a statue of Jefferson Davis). The former name of the school’s show choir, in which I sang, was the Dixieland Singers and became the Freedom Singers. The strange popularity contest awarded to the most outgoing and cute girl was formerly the Miss Southern Belle and became the Miss Tascosa Belle.
Amarillo was not even founded as a town during the civil war. (It was founded in 1877, twelve full years after Lee surrendered). The original use of confederate imagery in the town’s public spaces and at my alma mater were employed in the early 20th century as a fundamental reminder to Black citizens of Amarillo that the Jim Crow south was to be the order of things in perpetuity. To this day there even remains a confederate statue in Ellwood Park that was erected by the daughters of the confederacy, a well known white supremacy group, just 20 years before Tascosa was founded and its iconography employed. Despite strong community demands for removal in 2017, the Amarillo city council took the coward’s route and did nothing about it, perpetuating the white supremacy values that continue to rot our culture to its core. Is it any surprise then that my high school has not yet dealt with its confederate problem?
A well respected Amarillo columnist whom I knew growing up lightly wrote on the topic of the school’s alleged departure from its confederate past in 2014, although I suspect that his language remained intentionally more neutral than anything. He felt the need to maintain a moderate position in the community. It happens all the time — passivity so as not to upset the order of things. But fuck that. That’s white supremacy in (in)action. The time for moderation is gone and we now need a sober conversation about what needs to change.
I have so many good memories from Tascosa and only recently have I started to unpack the significance of the symbolism that loomed in the background. It’s caused me to pause and ask just how far from the confederate heritage has the school actually departed? The answers are painful.
In February of 1974, the school board allowed not the community, but the students of Tascosa to hold a meeting and vote on changes that would remain today. Keep in mind that these changes were not made out of sheer good will. Tascosa had no choice. It was either comply or crumble.
So now let’s outline what exact changes were made and how they demonstrate the misguidance of a false sense of heritage even today.
The School Mascot
Under increasing political and financial pressure, it was decided that a mascot change was necessary. With the impending bussing of Black students to Tascosa, the former General or “Johnny Reb” character was no longer acceptable as a mascot. The solution — an old western type character, perhaps a former confederate turned gun slinger or sheriff, named “Rebel Kid.”
It’s not much of a stretch to see that there was no significant departure from the former representation of a confederate character. The brand identity and subsequent social values portrayed by this kind of “fight-for-the-cause” character remained in-tact and the “fuck you you’re not welcome here” to the Black community that would soon attend the school was not quite so loud. It didn’t disappear though. It simply moved West where, just like Texas proved for two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered, if you keep on even after the war is virtually over, it’ll take an army to walk in and enforce a new way.
The overtones never dawned on me while I was in school at Tascosa. But thinking back, there is still a huge mosaic tile wall that depicts the former “Johnny Reb” character carrying rifle with bayonet just left of the school’s auditorium stage. As a teenager concerned with social standing and making it through the day, this symbol’s presence didn’t strike me as a bad thing. And none of my teachers explicitly called it out as a bad thing either, but perhaps that was only to keep from rocking the boat. Again, white supremacy in (in)action.
It’s an egregious icon and does nothing to encourage education or learning except to teach us about why it’s crucial to remove icons of racist power. But even to this day, the mascot remains the Rebel — a less subtle homage to a soldier fighting “for-the-cause.” It was not the “war of northern aggression.” The south did not lose the war — it started the war. Only the slave-holding white south lost the war. For Black Americans — both former slaves and their descendants — the end of the civil war marked a new era (and a long and deadly climb) of liberation that is still far from over.
When students and teachers wear this mascot on a sweatshirt, do they consider whether they can get behind its history and what it represents? Likely not. Consider again that this mascot depicts exactly the kind of Texan soldier that was responsible for refusing to quit fighting the war for two years after Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union forces.
I mean, for fuck sake there is literally a civil war canon in the school commons donated to commemorate the civil war centennial. Pretty heavy handed for a school that claims to have left its civil war imagery behind.
The School Song
The former school song was to the tune of “Dixie,” which explicitly calls out the grand illusion of the old south where plantation values are not forgotten. If you’ve never heard this atrocious number, here’s a version by the 2nd South Carolina String Band. If you really want to see some interesting discourse on race and the south, follow the link to YouTube and read the comments.
Tascosa changed the song to the tune of the University of Texas fight song “Texas Fight,” altering it slightly to its current form as “Rebel Fight.” Is it a departure? Nominally, sure. Is it still a pretty direct nod to that rebel spirit to remain ever steadfast and stalwart for the cause of the confederacy (aka making sure that slavery can continue)? Undoubtedly.
Why do faculty and students continue to sing these words unquestioned? Why isn’t the community in Amarillo talking about this?
The School Flag
The increasingly familiar confederate battle flag that we tend to associate with the old south is actually one of many — specifically though, it is the historic rectangular battle flag of the army of Tennessee during the Civil War, preceded by the battle flag of Robert E. Lee himself and his Army of Northern Virginia. It was the original school flag flown over Tascosa High School.
Interestingly enough, even though the flag wasn’t officially adopted by the confederacy, but rather used later in American history to implore the confederacy as an icon to support racist agendas. The flag that is in question was explicitly revived by the Dixiecrats to oppose civil rights. Keep in mind, the civil rights act put equal treatment of all races into explicit legal language — that’s it.
So 100 years after the civil war’s end and the confederacy’s complete and total surrender and the flag is still adopted by Thurmond. Around the same time there was a tremendous increase in public KKK activity, which actually began using the flag to promote white supremacy as far back as the release of the film “The Birth Of A Nation” in 1915.
The local adoption of the flag followed a trend of confederate culture infiltrating Amarillo in the late 20s/early 30s. (Remember the statue in Ellwood Park erected at that time)?
In the following decades, the recent memory of confederate causes being celebrated with parades gave the founders of Tascosa High School enough boldness to employ confederate iconography and build their institution. It was only 10 years following the Thurmond and the Dixiecrats’ flag rejuvenating efforts that Tascosa adopted the battle flag to represent their own sense of educational identity — one that claimed southern heritage. But it was never about southern heritage beyond its promotion of racist ideals. Simply calling it “heritage” will not and cannot undo that fact.
So the shameful banner flew for years over the student body. Imagine Black students seeing it over the courtyard every day. Imagine Black students playing for the school’s championship winning football team, looking out at a stadium full of people waving that flag around. What lunacy.
Sure, Tascosa students did change the flag at the 1974 meeting after the national situation forced the school’s hand, but left enough of its former version in tact so as to identify the new flag as a close relative to its confederate original. The crossed bars of stars were horizontally inverted, forming a diamond. A “T” was placed in the middle, and the former red/white/blue color palate was made red/black/white. This is the flag that still flies at the school today, used for school clothing, and even run across the football field before a Friday night game.
This bastardization of the confederate flag is remarkably similar to the Arkansas state flag. The official state flag was adopted in 1913 and even had an extra star added as a symbolic reference to the state’s tenure as a member of the confederacy.
I want to reiterate again — the actual confederate battle flag is the flag that originally hung over Tascosa High School, associating school spirit and heritage with a history entrenched in racist ideology. The current flag is a kissing cousin, still claiming that sense of heritage and pride, but at a slight distance so as not to tip off anyone who isn’t paying attention. When I look at the current school flag’s relationship with the battle flag, I cannot help but think of how absurd it is that it’s still flying alongside all the other thinly veiled confederate icons there. When I was a student, it never occurred to me that the flag was related to anything negative because talking about these subjects simply didn’t happen around me.
In fact, I was even one of the flag-runners at football games, as were my sisters. I did not understand its meaning nor its impact on my classmates of color. I saw it as a sign of rebellion (From what? I don’t know)and school pride. I did not take the time to investigate the weight of the symbol itself. We felt a strong, albeit naive, sense of school pride in getting the crowd ready for a game. This is the danger. And when I look back at this now, I am deeply ashamed of myself for such complicity. I seek no pardon now as I fully understand how inexcusable it was/is and I will wear it as a badge of shame for the rest of my life.
When a group of young, enthusiastic kids are carrying on traditions associated with a dark past without fully realizing the implications or meaning of those traditions, we are participating in the passing down of a “heritage” that’s soaked in a poisonous and bigoted thinking that has perpetuated the state sanctioned murder and oppression of Black people. It’s a familiar, weak argument. Whether it’s argument touting the civil war as one of state’s rights versus slavery or touting the confederate flag (in any form) as a flag representing heritage and not racism — it’s a poor guise trying to justify holding on to the facade of the treasonous and old land of cotton and white supremacy.
Legal Implications
Some people continue to make ridiculous claims today, such as: “but it’s flown over a memorial for civil war veterans so it’s totally appropriate.” No. It’s not appropriate to fly the banner of a treasonous, racist regime in public spaces. There are cemeteries in Germany honoring soldiers that do not fly the Nazi flag overhead. Imagine the outcry of the German people, Jewish people, and anyone who fought the fascist nazi regime if this were the case. The confederate battle flag is literally no different.
I’ll remind you that we pay taxes that fund those public spaces. I do not want a cent used for any confederate celebrations. I used to live near the Texas State Cemetery and it’s absurd that I felt thankful that I could walk down gravestone rows of confederate dead and even look upon entombed confederate generals without seeing a symbol of their cause flying overhead. It shouldn’t even be a question.
Since there is a very recent legal precedent set for states to define what they consider speech as evidenced in Walker v. Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans, we can take a look at an example right here in Texas. The issue was raised and brought before the supreme court when a specialty license plate was proposed to the state by the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a Confederate battle flag on it.
The big takeaways from this case are that government can and does express speech through things like license plates, state funded public spaces, monuments, etc. and that Texas has the ability to control its speech. Given these principles, the case may be easily made that a symbol that represents a confederacy of states unified by principles that upheld the false inferiority of Black Americans and maintained the superiority of white Americans — I’m talking about any confederate flag or derivation thereof — breaks the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the Constitution. Flying confederate flags, especially at a school, would break this clause by using the symbol as speech and thus would “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
It’s a nuanced legal argument, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come up in the courts in the coming terms. The subtext is very clear — it’s time to usher in a new era, folding flags and leaving confederate imagery to the museums. History, especially such a dark one, should not be the landmark toward which we strive.
What Do We Do?
Amarillo ISD and Tascosa’s community need to have an immediate, sober conversation about the school’s use of confederate imagery. I cannot remember a single conversation at my freshman orientation about the school’s historical use of confederate imagery. I cannot recall a single conversation in class about the adaptation of the confederate imagery that I accepted as normal each day I went to class. This is unacceptable. If students are to hold this imagery as a symbol of pride and are to wear it on their clothes, they should be explicitly informed about its past.
Consider the words of Robert E. Lee himself when he spoke of the role of the battle flag that his army created and flew after the war.
“I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavoured to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.”
-Robert E. Lee
Racial tensions in America are nothing new, but they reach much deeper than most of us realize. Overt forms of violence are obviously the headlines as they should be, but there are more nuanced undercurrents too. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Nixon’s Southern strategy, the US has seen many of today’s defining political issues align according to states with a slaveholding past. This includes public opinions of government programs like medicaid and welfare. In states that formerly held slaves, politics have also systemically upheld racist symbolism and iconography under different party brands (see the current legal situation in South Carolina regarding the confederate battle flag).
A group of researchers, who are more conservative than not, published a paper in 2001 that explored the reasons why America did not have the same welfare structure that European countries have. Race was the winning answer by a long shot. Programs that offer assistance and aid to the needy are quite often associated with race-groups and not socio-economic groups. Regardless of your opinion of public programs, knowing that fact should astonish you.
Beyond public opinion and politics, there are real social disparities between the average Black US citizen and their white counterparts. It’s important to keep the narrative in historical context, especially regarding policies of segregation and their subsequent effects on American life. Here are just a few examples to start exploring if any of this information is new to you.
- Race-specific ghettos have grown up in our country as a matter of Redlining policy.
- “Black Americans are 6 times more likely than white Americans to die by homicide, a crime that is overwhelmingly intraracial in nature.” The root cause for this statistic is largely tied to the policies that created race-specific ghettos. “[R]ates of violent crime are highest in disadvantaged communities that contain large concentrations of minority groups, but disparities in official crime may reflect biases in the way criminal justice institutions treat different racial and ethnic groups rather than differences in actual offending.”
- Black Americans are about 10% more likely to be pulled over or arrested by police, even in areas where they are the residential minority. In places like Chicago this likelihood increases to 26%.
- Black youth also have some of the highest rates of depression in America and lowest rates of treatment.
Given these statistics, is it really appropriate to continue using confederate imagery in any form, especially when it’s pushed on under-informed high school students? Tascosa is ethnically diverse and current students and alumni both should be outraged at the complicit use of these icons to engender school spirit. It’s flat out bullshit.
Have The Conversation
It’s not only time for Tascosa to have the overdue discussion about their continued symbolic ties to racist confederate iconography, it’s time for them to remove those icons entirely. Keep in mind, this is not a nuanced discussion about the civil rights movement, nor have we even delved into the #blacklivesmatter protests that have so necessarily pervaded our society today. We’re literally still talking about confederate symbols — symbols from a shameful war over the enslavement of Black bodies that was squarely lost by the slavers and their enablers. Is that really the how Tascosa wants to be remembered in history? The Tascosa motto is “Non Sibi Sed Omnibus” which means “Not for one’s self but for all.” The healing process has to begin with honest conversation about racism and the unquestioned removal of these blatantly racist icons that students have to see every day.
Let’s finally depart from dixie once and for all. Let’s do at least this small right by the millions of profound injustices against Black communities and bodies that continue today. Icons are powerful. How Amarillo, AISD, and the community of Tascosa High School deals with those symbols will be its legacy.
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A big thank you to those of you who read the early drafts with me and a special thanks to Alex Blum for his great consult. Hopefully this does some good and shakes things up in Amarillo.
