School still seeks Rebel’s replacement
San Lorenzo mascot out, but phoenix doesn’t fly
Months after scrubbing names and images with Confederate roots from school property, San Lorenzo High School still doesn’t have a mascot or team name.
Last Tuesday, the San Lorenzo Unified School District board was scheduled to vote to replace its ousted mascot, the Rebel Guy, with a phoenix, a mythological bird, but the wings of that plan were unexpectedly clipped.
In Greek mythology, the phoenix is a bird with regenerative powers that has come to symbolize rebirth and ascendance from the ashes of the past.
The San Lorenzo Phoenix sounded befitting — until the board learned the phoenix image is also associated with a longtime white supremacist group.
The school board held off on voting so it could do more research on the mascot name.
“With any decision the board’s going to make,
we’re careful and cautious, especially if there’s any type of concern being brought up,” said Janet Zamudio, the board’s president.
Here’s a brief recap of how we got here: In 2016, students successfully fought to get rid of the Rebel Guy, a cartoon that resembled a mustachioed Western prospector, who was a descendant of the school’s original mascot, Colonel Reb.
Colonel Reb was a tribute to the Confederate soldier in the Civil War, the four-year clash over the rights of Southern plantation owners and politicians to retain ownership of millions of enslaved black people. He was retired in 1997.
In June, the school board voted unanimously to remove the Rebel name.
The Rebel name was scraped off the school’s walls and sports uniforms, an effort that cost roughly $200,000, according to Fred Brill, the school district’s superintendent.
“It was in our fields, on old uniforms — there was just a lot of artifacts if you’re doing planners and signage,” Brill told me. “All of that needed to get eradicated. Now, some of that would’ve had to be updated anyway, so there were sunk costs. But some of them were certainly new costs.”
You can’t put a price on removing racist imagery that made students and members of the community feel uncomfortable.
“This was the right thing to do, and I’m proud of our students and staff and community members who spoke up,” Brill said. “I understand this kind of change is hard for people, but I’m really proud of the equity work we're doing in our district.”
In recent years, activists have protested against mascot names and images — think the National Football League’s Washington Redskins — that they consider offensive. Last month, the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball announced that Chief Wahoo, a caricature of American Indians, would be removed from uniforms in 2019, though the team name won’t be changed.
Jack Tharp of the San Lorenzo High alumni group Rebel Coalition once vehemently opposed removing the Rebel name, though he acknowledged its connection to slavery.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to break the Rebel name away from the Confederacy,” Tharp said.
In a twist, it was Tharp, 65, a 1971 graduate of San Lorenzo, who told the school board about the use of the phoenix by the Aryan Renaissance Society. According to the AntiDefamation League, a civil and human rights organization, the society “is a small but long-lived white supremacist group that has resembled both a racist skinhead group and a prison clique at times.”
“I was just so surprised that those educators did not do their homework,” Tharp said.
And it’s not just the connection to a racist group that Tharp said he’s concerned about. The plural form of phoenix — which he spelled “phoenices” — sounds too similar to, well, I’ll let Tharp tell you what he thinks it sounds like.
“The students are going to say penises,” he said.
We both laughed, sharing a moment of levity during what has been a contentious and bitter process. By the way, it’s also spelled “phoenixes.”
Zamudio said the board’s mascot selection committee had recommended the phoenix as the most fitting representation of the school, which wants to shake free of a history that included glorifying slavery by auctioning students in blackface for school fundraisers. Still, Tharp said the committee has ignored student input.
The board received 854 responses to its name and mascot community survey issued last year. The Grizzlies and the Phoenix tied for the most votes, with each receiving 250. The Raptors were the third highest with 187 votes. In a follow-up survey, students, staff and community members selected their top choice.
Students chose the Grizzlies as their top choice, followed by the Raptors and the Phoenix. The school staff chose the Phoenix. The Mavericks won the community vote.
“What kind of a message are you sending to these students when they clearly voted for the Grizzlies and then you gave them the Phoenix?” Tharp said.
The phoenix mascot hasn’t been permanently grounded, and it could rise from the dead, according to Zamudio. She pointed out that Anova Center for Education, a Sonoma County school for children with autism that burned in the October Tubbs Fire, has a GoFundMe pledge drive to help the school “rise from the ashes.” The drive is called the Phoenix Campaign.
The mascot selection committee will deliver suggestions to the board, which is expected to again take up the mascot issue during the Feb. 20 meeting.
Symbols of the Confederacy memorialize America’s racist history, and they don’t belong on school campuses. That’s why the Rebel Guy and Rebel name were expelled. The board would be wise not to enlist more imagery, like the phoenix, that’s been hijacked by a hate group.
However, the students should choose which mascot they want to represent them.
“They’re ready to move forward,” Zamudio said, referring to students. “They want a mascot. They want a mascot name.”