Add Fox News Todd Starnes to the short list (including David French and Bryan Fischer) to the list of prominent conservatives who are defending symbols of the Confederacy.
In a column today, Starnes made fun of the Fort Smith, Arkansas school board for phasing out their Rebel mascot and removing Dixie as the school fight song. More precisely, the school board met as a committee of the whole and voted to make it official during an upcoming meeting. According to a notice on the district’s Facebook page (which Starnes partially cited), the changes are being made because the racist symbolism.
The board wrote:
Giving great consideration to the continuing impact of perceived symbols of racism on the community, state and nation, the Fort Smith Public School Board convened as a Committee of the Whole tonight and passed a motion to discontinue the use of “Dixie” as the Southside High School fight song in the 2015-2016 school year, and to phase out the use of the Rebel as the Southside mascot in the 2016-2017 school year.
This motion passed with a 6-0 vote and will be presented to the Board during the regularly scheduled meeting on July 27, 2015. The Rebel and “Dixie” have been used as the Southside High School mascot and fight song since the school opened more than 50 years ago. The Board understands the challenges of changing what has come to be the tradition of the Southside High School community, and will work with the student body and staff over the next year to name a new mascot and fight song for the school.
While this is sure to be controversial, it shouldn’t be. The Civil War was over a long time ago. It is time to move past Rebels and Dixie. Nothing seems clearer now; except to Todd Starnes. He closes his “news” break with this:
Folks around Fort Smith aren’t too keen on the idea of removing either the mascot or the song. Many posted their extreme displeasure on the district’s social networking sites.
“It appears to be a knee jerk reaction influenced by current events,” one reader wrote. “Removing flags or historical symbols because they may offend a number of people is a slippery slope.”
I’m curious, though, about this idea of perceived symbols of racism. It really is subjective, isn’t it?
I mean – I could perceive the Fort Smith School Board to be a bunch of dim-witted, dingleberry lefties who don’t have the sense God gave a goose.
But I could be mistaken.
However — in this case, I’m more than likely right.
And I’m not just whistling Dixie.
Starnes might like to hang with Michael Peroutka who thinks Dixie is the national anthem.
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