Opinion: Pointless 'Dixie' debate diminishes Texas football team's title run
The only debate there should be in Refugio, Texas, is whether this year’s team is good enough to win its fifth state title.
But some of the adults in the community won’t cooperate, mistaking “tradition” for bigotry and ignorance as they defend the continued use of “Dixie” as the school’s fight song. A school in a district with a student population that is less than a third white, mind you.
“If they continue to say we’re going to hold to this, it’s like, 'Black people, the hell with you all. This song is more important than what you’re feeling,’ ” Ronald Green, who played at Refugio in the late 1960s and has been a leader in the effort to silence "Dixie," told Paste BN Sports on Tuesday.
Whether the song is heard Wednesday night, when Refugio faces Post for the Class 2A Division I state championship at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, remains to be seen. Superintendent Melissa Gonzales told the band not to play the song until the school board could decide on its use, but it hasn’t been played since a Nov. 25 meeting when the board voted 5-2 to keep it, either.
In a Nov. 27 Facebook post, which has since been deleted, the Refugio Independent School District said it would “consult with stakeholders, including current students, regarding the use of the song 'Dixie'.”
That it’s even a question is outrageous.
"Dixie" was written in the 1850s for a minstrel show. You know, the shows that ridiculed African-Americans and were often performed by white actors in blackface. The song would eventually become the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy.
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Anything that glorifies racism, or the people who fought so mightily to uphold it, should have been consigned to the dustbin of history long ago. It has no place in modern American society, and certainly not in a school where children are – hopefully – being taught that everyone is equal, and that no race is superior to another.
“(The song) is offensive to many people. It’s offensive to me,” Dareon Willis, who is both a starter on the football team and a member of the band, told the Caller Times. “I feel like a school is supposed to be there for all of the students and make us all feel safe and welcomed.
“But I guess that’s not the case in this community.”
Other schools have realized this. Ole Miss scrapped it in 2016, and two high schools in Austin, Texas, stopped using it earlier in the decade.
Those who defend keeping "Dixie," or the Confederate statues, say they see nothing wrong with the song. That they just want to honor their history. History of what? Small-minded and hateful people who wanted to keep others in chains simply because of the color of their skin?
Let’s call "Dixie" and the shrines to the Confederacy what they really are: An homage to losers.
Besides, it’s not their judgment to make. People of color have said these “tributes” to the Confederacy make them uncomfortable, or worse, and that should be enough. People of privilege – in this case, that means white people – don’t get to define racism, and they sure don’t get to tell people of color that their outrage is unwarranted.
Green recalls learning about minstrel shows and the meaning behind Dixie when he was in grade school. A few years later, when he was playing football and he’d hear "Dixie" or see someone waving a Confederate flag, he felt degraded.
“I felt like I was always a circus clown,” Green said. “I’m only there to perform.”
No child should feel that way. Not then, and certainly not now.
Follow Paste BN Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.