West Monroe High School has produced a new generation of alumni, who seemed to be proud of their school, but they are ashamed of its symbol, the Rebel.
Tuesday night, a 2018 West Monroe graduate Dalia El-Giar, presented the Ouachita Parish School Board with a petition signed by 3000 people who say it’s time for West Monroe High School to change its mascot.
El-Giar said the Rebel image is associated with negative images that do not reflect the new generation of its graduates, most of whom are open-minded, culturally inclusive, and harbor no racist attitudes towards anyone.
Unfortunately, the school mascot puts West Monroe grads, especially white alumni, into a group deemed backwoods and country by the corporate community they intend to impress with their education and training.
Outside of the South, a young person who attends a high school whose mascot symbolizes divisiveness, white power, Neo-Nazism, and racism, finds themselves inadvertently passed over for awards and achievements or positions that require cultural sensitivity.
West Monroe is a school that produces top scholars, athletes, and professionals. It is a football powerhouse and a source of academic pride.
Despite all of its achievements, its scholars may be hindered by something as simple as a school mascot.
Johnny Reb, The Rebel Flag, the Song Dixie, and other symbols of the old South may be nostalgic to those with roots in the Confederacy; however, outside of the South, all of those symbols point to a person raised in a culture that clings to the negative ideas and culture of the past.
They are viewed as people who embrace the words of the song Dixie “I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away Dixie land.”
What were the old times? It was a time when white supremacy was unquestioned. It was a time when Negroes knew their place and every Southern state had slaves.
When that way of life was threatened, the Southern states rebelled against the United States. That rebellion included Ouachita Parish that outfitted a Confederate military unit called the Ouachita Rifles and other units. The whites of this parish became rebels, traitors to the United States of America.
Ouachita residents welcomed Confederate soldiers, and on Desiard Street in Monroe, the City of Monroe dedicated land for the erection of a towering Confederate soldier to keep watch over the city. That Confederate Memorial still stands to this day.
Since the Civil War, Ouachita Parish has been Rebel Country. The “Rebel” mascot says to the world, “Old times are not forgotten.”
All of the white members of the school board voted to keep the Rebel Mascot.
Its newest graduates want to show their love for the school without being subliminally tagged as racist because their high school seems to hold on to the past’s negative images.
Ms. El-Giar represents the best of what West Monroe has produced. Its alumni want a chance without the negative associations.
Unfortunately, the school board won’t give them that chance.
