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Speaker 1: My old black n drollers done on overlanding rentro.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: No ninth Planet Audio dot com. We're overlanding, you're over

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Speaker 3: landing over.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us tonight for the meeting of

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Speaker 4: the Boone County Board of Education. I will now call

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Speaker 4: the meeting to order.

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Speaker 5: It's December fourteenth, twenty twenty three. I'm Akila Hughes, and

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Speaker 5: I'm in Florence, Kentucky. It's my hometown, and I've braved

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Speaker 5: a cold night and two and a half very long

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Speaker 5: hours of bureaucratic updates about bus drivers, software and survey

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Speaker 5: results in order to speak at the Boone County Schools

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Speaker 5: Board of Education meeting.

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Speaker 4: Market So we'll be bringing that back to our January

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Speaker 4: Classified Task Force meeting desegregating.

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Speaker 5: That many people who had signed up to speak at

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Speaker 5: the public comments section dropped out as the agenda dragged on.

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Speaker 5: I was determined to stick it out, and finally at

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Speaker 5: nine thirty one pm it was my turn.

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Speaker 4: And I do see Hughes, our former student board rep

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Speaker 4: from back in the old days, is first up to

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Speaker 4: talk about an item. It's not on origin tonight, but

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Speaker 4: that's okay. And I do notice that a couple of

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Speaker 4: people have yielded their time to you.

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Speaker 5: So good evening. I'm a cue. Actually wait, I'm getting

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Speaker 5: ahead of myself. Let's rewind a.

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Speaker 6: Bit on ourgent Four score and seven years ago, our

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Speaker 6: fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation.

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Speaker 5: Okay, okay, that's actually too far back. Hold on, give

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Speaker 5: me a second, all right, May two thousand and five.

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Speaker 7: Perfect.

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Speaker 5: It's the final week of my senior year at Boone

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Speaker 5: County High School. But instead of watching movies and emptying

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Speaker 5: our lockers, there's a pep rally arrange for the final

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Speaker 5: quarter of the day. Imagine two thousands Weddy high schoolers

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Speaker 5: crammed into the gym, chattering through the post lunch haze,

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Speaker 5: waiting for an update on why any of this is happening.

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Speaker 5: Most pep rallies followed the same format. There was some

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Speaker 5: rocous speech by the principal, the cheerleaders would perform, some

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Speaker 5: sports boy would do a speech from varsity Blues.

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Speaker 2: I woke go kind of sad, but then I cheered

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Speaker 2: up when I realized there's only a dream, because I

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Speaker 2: know it will be bango by way more than that.

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Speaker 5: But seeing as there were no more games to attend

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Speaker 5: this pep rally was kind of mysterious. The pep band

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Speaker 5: rose to their feet and with a one, and a

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Speaker 5: two and a everyone got up and clapped along. Some

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Speaker 5: would muster more sincerity than others. In addition to the

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Speaker 5: queuing of smoke machines, a large paper banner unfurled the

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Speaker 5: work of a listless art class at the end of

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Speaker 5: the year, decorated with the words let's go and the

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Speaker 5: school's initials BCHS. Cheerleaders shook their palm palms and kicked.

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Speaker 5: This was going to be something, and that something was

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Speaker 5: a relatively high energy, kicking and punching figure. The smoke

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Speaker 5: settled and the secret was revealed, a brand new, felt bodied,

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Speaker 5: blue eyed, big headed Confederate general named Mister Rebel. The

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Speaker 5: reactions were mixed. The demographics of the school were like

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Speaker 5: a fist full of cocoa puffs sprinkled in a family

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Speaker 5: sized box of kicks. Among the white underclassmen, there was

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Speaker 5: a wave of excitement and anticipation, but for the white

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Speaker 5: seniors there was a sense of too little, too late.

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Speaker 5: For the four years of our attendance at the school,

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Speaker 5: there was no physical mascot on the sidelines cheering on

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Speaker 5: the Rebels. Why did the incoming freshmen deserve that more

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Speaker 5: than them? Among the black kids was a wave of

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Speaker 5: sideyeing and disgust. It wasn't breaking news that our school

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Speaker 5: had a racist team name the Rebels, named for the Confederacy.

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Speaker 5: It hadn't even been a decade since they repainted the

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Speaker 5: Confederate flag that was on the gym floor. Every one

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Speaker 5: of us was acutely aware of what it meant to

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Speaker 5: be black and Florence can now here was a bobbleheaded

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Speaker 5: mascot to remind us that we were never meant to

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Speaker 5: belong And it's a little funny kind of that, one

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Speaker 5: hundred and forty years later, in a state that did

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Speaker 5: not secede from the Union and fight as part of

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Speaker 5: the Confederacy, there was a hatred deep enough to spend

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Speaker 5: real American currency outfitting a mascot, and none of us

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Speaker 5: related to Seeing mister Rebel made me feel pretty good

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Speaker 5: about graduating and getting away. It's been eighteen years and

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Speaker 5: I've done a lot since then. For those of you

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Speaker 5: who don't know me, Hi, I'm Akila Hughes. I'm a writer, comedian, actor,

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Speaker 5: and podcast host. I'm firmly a millennial, so having a

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Speaker 5: career made up of artsy side hustles isn't that unusual.

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Speaker 5: In the past five years, I've written for Steven Soderberg,

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Speaker 5: voiced a character on Bob's Burger's proposal I'm Gonna cry,

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Speaker 5: Oh Nat, I'm flattered, but released a collection of essays

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Speaker 5: called Obviously Stories from My Timeline from Penguin. Random House

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Speaker 5: put out a banger of a sketch series with Comedy

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Speaker 5: Central and Milana Eintru called Making Fun with Aequila and Milana,

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Speaker 5: and hosted more than four hundred episodes of the hit

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Speaker 5: daily news podcast What a Day from Crooked Media. I

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Speaker 5: currently live in Los Angeles with my very cute dog

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Speaker 5: that I also rescued in this short time span. But

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Speaker 5: this podcast isn't about any of that. This podcast is

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Speaker 5: about how I went back to my hometown and tried

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Speaker 5: to change my high school's mascot from the Rebels to

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Speaker 5: the Biscuits.

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Speaker 8: I was a lady rebel, Like, what does.

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Speaker 3: That even need?

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Speaker 4: The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels.

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Speaker 5: But the image of it right here in black and

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Speaker 5: white and France.

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Speaker 9: Ami figures is a flag or mask on.

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Speaker 10: Anytime you're trying to mess with tradition, you get to

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Speaker 10: be ready for a serious backlash.

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Speaker 5: From Ninth Planet Audio. I'm Aquila Hughes, and this is

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Speaker 5: Rebel Spirit Episode one, a homecoming. Some of you American

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Speaker 5: history buffs might be scratching your head wondering why a

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Speaker 5: school in Kentucky, a state that was famously neutral in

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Speaker 5: the Civil War but still practiced chattel slavery, would have

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Speaker 5: the Rebels team name. It's a good question and one

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Speaker 5: that I began seriously asking in twenty fifteen. Back in

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Speaker 5: June of twenty fifteen, a white supremacist named Dylan Rufe

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Speaker 5: murdered nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. A few days later,

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Speaker 5: his manifesto was revealed online, complete with Confederate flags, slurs,

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Speaker 5: and photos of him brandishing weapons. I saw those images

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Speaker 5: as my flight took off from New York to the

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Speaker 5: Cincinnati Airport, which is actually in northern Kentucky. I was

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Speaker 5: on my way back home to attend my high school reunion.

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Speaker 5: For the extent of the more than two hour flight,

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Speaker 5: I thought about high school. I remember the lack of

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Speaker 5: diversity at the school, how sometimes I would be counting

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Speaker 5: blackfaces and noticed that another black kid was doing the

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Speaker 5: same thing.

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Speaker 3: Do you have a number, actually on how many black

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Speaker 3: kids there were in your graduating class?

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Speaker 10: Oh?

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Speaker 11: Man, I wish I knew exactly, but I know Ashley

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Speaker 11: me that was the girls, and you who was the quarterback.

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Speaker 11: He was like trade off quarterback with this Greek kid,

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Speaker 11: q On Meeks Jamal, and there's like two.

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Speaker 12: Thousand kids or something.

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Speaker 5: The only black administrator I knew was Coach Floyd, a

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Speaker 5: former NFL player whose office got trashed and spray painted

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Speaker 5: with slurs. I remembered getting in school suspension and threatened

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Speaker 5: with worse for wearing a shirt I decorated with puffy

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Speaker 5: paint to say, kiss me, I'm black. One history teacher

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Speaker 5: wouldn't even read it correctly. He'd just loudly repeat kiss me,

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Speaker 5: I'm irish as I passed his classroom.

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Speaker 6: That's right.

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Speaker 5: He wasn't even my teacher, just going out of his

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Speaker 5: way to be obnoxious. I thought about the social side

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Speaker 5: effects of being black, how most of the black girls

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Speaker 5: went to prom alone, and the black guys would go

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Speaker 5: with white girls if they were on the football team,

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Speaker 5: and the girls' fathers weren't terribly racist. I considered how

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Speaker 5: it wasn't uncommon to see Confederate flags on bumper stickers,

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Speaker 5: T shirts, and tat two. It was just something I

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Speaker 5: had to live my adolescence next to. But then I

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Speaker 5: also thought about my friends in forensics and choir field

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Speaker 5: trips to the zoo, where instead of completing our group assignments,

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Speaker 5: we all just met up to watch the monkeys going

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Speaker 5: at it. I remembered a kid getting suspended from making

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Speaker 5: stink bombs and the grassroots campaign to free him from suspension.

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Speaker 5: It was a super complicated flight emotionally. I'll tell you

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Speaker 5: that fast forward. I attend the reunion at what was

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Speaker 5: then the Florence Freedom Minor League Baseball Park. The food

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Speaker 5: was unremarkable. There were so many kids with their parents,

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Speaker 5: my former classmates, and everyone was nice. I didn't expect

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Speaker 5: anyone to be unpleasant at the reunion, and genuinely it

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Speaker 5: was an okay time. I caught up with a few

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Speaker 5: kids from my AP classes in extracurriculars and it was

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Speaker 5: truly fine. I wrote about all of this for the

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Speaker 5: website Fusion, a short lived joint venture between ABC and

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Speaker 5: Univision Rest in Peace, thinking that I covered pretty much everything.

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Speaker 5: The school had a racist team name and mascot. Racism

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Speaker 5: happened when I was in high sch just as naturally

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Speaker 5: as fun and crushes and lockers happened in high school.

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Speaker 5: But now everyone kind of grew up and saw more

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Speaker 5: of the world and generally didn't seem represented by those

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Speaker 5: racist totems. They, being the people still in Florence, Kentucky,

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Speaker 5: did not like this. Pretty quickly after that essay was published,

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Speaker 5: the Cincinnati Inquirer re published it in their Sunday paper.

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Speaker 5: The photo for the article was a nearly twelve x

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Speaker 5: twelve inch color square of me photoshopped onto a Confederate flag.

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Speaker 5: The title was changed to Rebel Pride Hard to Take

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Speaker 5: After that. It was pretty much NonStop discourse on Facebook.

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Speaker 5: Some of my fellow alums agreed with me, while many

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Speaker 5: claimed it wasn't that racist, like, for example, one person

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Speaker 5: said that they only got called the N word one

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Speaker 5: time at Boone County, and oh did I know that

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Speaker 5: I was the real racist for talking about rather than

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Speaker 5: ignoring racism. Thankfully, my years of being a YouTuber gave

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Speaker 5: me pretty thick skin about the whole thing. Time moved on,

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Speaker 5: and so did I Boone County, however, still hasn't. Two

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Speaker 5: years later, in twenty seventeen, there was a white supremacist

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Speaker 5: rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. Replace you can

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Speaker 5: probably recall the khakis and tiki torches right.

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Speaker 10: Well.

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Speaker 5: During that riot, a protester, Heather Hare, was murdered run

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Speaker 5: over by a car.

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Speaker 8: James Fields face is a murder charge in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Speaker 8: Fields grew up in Boone County.

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Speaker 5: Boone County, Kentucky is where I'm from. Two. He grew

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Speaker 5: up fewer than ten miles from my high school and

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Speaker 5: is currently serving a life sentence plus four hundred and

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Speaker 5: nineteen years on state murder charges in another life sentence

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Speaker 5: on federal domestic terrorism charges. The timing of that white

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Speaker 5: supremacist rally really is, at least in my opinion, White's

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Speaker 5: now twenty twenty four and the team name is still

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Speaker 5: the Rebels. Charlottesville happened in August twenty seventeen, two years

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Speaker 5: after the Charleston church shooting, and in those two years,

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Speaker 5: America started doing away with Confederate relics. Streets name for

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Speaker 5: Robert E. Lee were changed, statues celebrating their loser leadership

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Speaker 5: were melted down or disappeared, And in March twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 5: it was reported that Boone County High School was going

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Speaker 5: to get a new mascot.

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Speaker 13: Mean asked to leave their mark after they graduate. They're

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Speaker 13: being challenged to create a new logo, new mascot that'll

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Speaker 13: be used across the school's teams and clubs. Right now,

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Speaker 13: different clubs use different logos. Now, that's not uncommon, but

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Speaker 13: Boone County wants to create a look that also creates

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Speaker 13: an identifiable brand. The change also means the long time

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Speaker 13: mister Rebel will be retired. About thirty students have already

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Speaker 13: submitted ideas. A winning submission will be named in the

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Speaker 13: coming weeks.

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Speaker 5: The news seems to have been met with a collective shrug.

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Speaker 5: There was no outcry, no petitions to keep the Confederate

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Speaker 5: General springing up after the announcement. But the twenty seventeen

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Speaker 5: twenty eighteen school years started just two weeks after the

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Speaker 5: Charlottesville riot, and what was agreed upon and uncontroversial in

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Speaker 5: March was suddenly an uphill battle.

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Speaker 13: We don't want a new logo, we want our rebel.

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Speaker 5: You know, well, why take it away?

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Speaker 13: Now why they're taking our statues.

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Speaker 8: They're taking everything.

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Speaker 5: They're taking our statues, not much statues might those be

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Speaker 5: who might she be associating the rebels with? There was

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Speaker 5: also a Save Mister Rebel Facebook group founded on August

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Speaker 5: twenty fourth, twenty seventeen. It had been five months since

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Speaker 5: the announcement that the school was getting rid of Mister Rebel,

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Speaker 5: but suddenly this stupid mascot was worth rallying behind, not

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Speaker 5: despite the white supremacist rally, but because of it. That's

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Speaker 5: what we're dealing with. And so since twenty seventeen, nothing

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Speaker 5: has changed. The school is still the Rebels. Mister Rebel

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Speaker 5: is dead, and for a lot of people that's good enough,

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Speaker 5: but not for me. I'm doing this podcast with one

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Speaker 5: goal in mind, and that's to get the team name

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Speaker 5: changed for good Goodbye Boone County Rebels, Hello Boone County Biscuits. Okay,

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Speaker 5: so why Biscuits. Well, when you ask why the Rebels,

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Speaker 5: one deflection is that the short lived and famously losing

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Speaker 5: Confederate Rebels against the United States of America are the

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Speaker 5: heritage of the area. We already discussed how that's not true,

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Speaker 5: but that's what you'll be told it's not hateful, it's

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Speaker 5: just our heritage. Don't discuss what the war was about.

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Speaker 5: In fact, remove any history books that tell you it

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Speaker 5: was about slavery. No one is questioning whether or not

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Speaker 5: it's a heritage to be proud of, or pointing out

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Speaker 5: that it's not really even a Kentucky thing. They aren't

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Speaker 5: really asking any questions at all. But if we do

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Speaker 5: want to celebrate Southern heritage, I can't think of a

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Speaker 5: better more inclusive icon than a biscuit. It's warm, it's welcoming,

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Speaker 5: it's not especially healthy, and you'll be hard pressed to

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Speaker 5: find a worthy one outside of the South. It's vegetarian,

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Speaker 5: and you really can't beat them. They're great. Also, biscuits

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Speaker 5: has the same number of syllables as rebels, so the

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Speaker 5: cheerleaders won't have to change their cheers that much. I've

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Speaker 5: thought about it a lot, and I think the Boone

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Speaker 5: County Biscuits has a real ring to it. What do

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Speaker 5: you think of the Boone County Biscuits just as a name.

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Speaker 3: The book?

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Speaker 1: What so okay?

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Speaker 8: Or what do you put on the side of the

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Speaker 8: football home.

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Speaker 12: Is it like just a static biscuit or is it

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Speaker 12: like a biscuit around a bowl of sausage gravy.

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Speaker 5: Mascot needs to be something that celebrates Southern heritage. Perhaps

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Speaker 5: it could be the Boone County Biscuits. How does that

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Speaker 5: hit you biscuits yet?

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Speaker 8: I don't know, not not really feeling biscuits.

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Speaker 11: Not feeling biscuits, fair biscuits.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I can't wait to see that.

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Speaker 5: Maybe the Biscuits name is mister Rebel.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like Rebel Biscuits. Like there's something there. I mean, it's.

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Speaker 7: Cute, right, and it's honestly, it could be biscuits right,

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Speaker 7: like right, It could be so many things, but I

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Speaker 7: just know what it can't be at this point, and back,

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Speaker 7: let's get it done.

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Speaker 5: Yeah all right, Well, not everyone's into the whole biscuit

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Speaker 5: team name, but no, Biggie, We're going to dive deep

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Speaker 5: into mascots, good and bad team names and what helps

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Speaker 5: create school spirit a little bit later. But first, let

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Speaker 5: me tell you a little bit about my hometown of Florence,

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Speaker 5: Kentucky and the one and only Florence Mall. Back in

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Speaker 5: the seventies, Florence tied its newly built mall to the

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Speaker 5: water tower. It said in big black letters, Florence Mall

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Speaker 5: as a way to get people driving to and from

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Speaker 5: Cincinnati to stop. The letters were a little too big,

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Speaker 5: larger than highway advertising laws allowed, and they legally had

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Speaker 5: to change it. The mayor at the time had the

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Speaker 5: brilliant idea to change Florence Mall to Florence y'all. They

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Speaker 5: literally painted out a little bit of the M to

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Speaker 5: make it into a Y and an apostrophe. Originally just

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Speaker 5: a quick fix, the phrase stuck, becoming a cherr symbol

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Speaker 5: for the city over nearly fifty years. The water tower,

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Speaker 5: the mall, the y'all of it all are fixtures of

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Speaker 5: my childhood in the region. I came back to Florence

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Speaker 5: for a week in September twenty twenty three to start

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Speaker 5: my quest to change the mascot. There was a school

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Speaker 5: board meeting to attend in a big homecoming game at

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Speaker 5: the end of the week our main draw, but my

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Speaker 5: first stop was the mall. And there's a beautiful view

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Speaker 5: of the water tower, just stunning.

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Speaker 7: Florence y'all.

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Speaker 11: My whole life.

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Speaker 7: This is our empire statepoo.

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Speaker 5: There's nothing like it's I mean, you can see it's

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Speaker 5: just like a fence being home again is strange. I

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Speaker 5: come back probably once a year to visit family and friends,

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Speaker 5: but to be back for a full week in my

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Speaker 5: old stomping grounds is wild. Nothing is really the same.

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Speaker 5: There is an explosion of new chain restaurants and shops.

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Speaker 5: There are sidewalks, and even if it's diminished in stature

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Speaker 5: and importance, there's still the mall, a nineties relic but

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Speaker 5: still standing. Yeah, there's still the Claire's. I got my

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Speaker 5: ears pierced there when I was ten. The mall seemed

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Speaker 5: like the right place to start out enacting our game plan,

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Speaker 5: except it's a pretty dead mall. There's probably to people

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Speaker 5: we can even talk to.

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Speaker 7: How is this the mall?

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Speaker 5: I mean this used to be like if you were

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Speaker 5: in high school in the early two thousands, you would

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Speaker 5: go on dates to the mall. You would hang out

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Speaker 5: with your friends at the mall. Forever twenty one is there?

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Speaker 5: Like that was the store I worked in when I

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Speaker 5: worked at a store, but I also worked at the

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Speaker 5: Hershey's ice Cream which No Wanderings is for Florence as

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Speaker 5: like a destination. The mall was really kind of the

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Speaker 5: biggest thing in the area, like northern Kentucky. When I

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Speaker 5: was growing up, and so we are here. We're gonna

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Speaker 5: go outside and stand on the sidewalk talk to some

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Speaker 5: people about biscuits and see how they feel about it.

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Speaker 5: And Wow, I'm overwhelmed by how depressing this place is

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Speaker 5: to me. Sorry, I know you all are about to eat,

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Speaker 5: but if you have like two minutes for a survey,

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Speaker 5: we're giving out free target gift cards. It's like five

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Speaker 5: questions and it's about biscuits.

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Speaker 11: Biscuits, biscuits.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I'm the perfect person.

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Speaker 8: Please comator, dotoor ball so you have a strong previous.

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Speaker 3: We love biscuits those times.

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Speaker 13: It's my favorite field.

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Speaker 5: Would you support a sports mascot that was a biscuit?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely? I would be all over that.

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Speaker 1: That's very random biscuit mascot, y'all.

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Speaker 8: Want a biscuit mascot?

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Speaker 5: Like, could you see yourself at a game for the biscuits? No,

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Speaker 5: any reason why In particular, I just think it's weird.

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Speaker 5: Do you have any ideas for the name of a

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Speaker 5: sports mascot that is a biscuit?

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Speaker 7: See biscuit?

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Speaker 3: See dis is a biscuit?

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Speaker 2: I like that?

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Speaker 5: Do you see any issues with a sports mascot that's

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Speaker 5: a biscuit.

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Speaker 9: No, no, no, yeah, well biscuits is like universal sports.

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Speaker 8: Mascot, that's tigers. Why can't a sports mascot be.

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Speaker 11: A food like only flag football?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like not like actual football.

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Speaker 6: Why a biscuits?

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Speaker 2: Huh? I think that people would think it was nuts.

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Speaker 5: All right, I get it. Making a high school team

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Speaker 5: into the Biscuits is an uphill battle. But have you

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Speaker 5: met me?

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Speaker 14: Some black people were starting to work in the Vine County,

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Speaker 14: and you know, you have the mall, you have people

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Speaker 14: who work at the mall, you have stores around them

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Speaker 14: all and so different kinds of people come in there,

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Speaker 14: and I think that got their eyes open, like woo,

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Speaker 14: we'd like to live out here and have a big

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Speaker 14: line on a big yard.

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Speaker 5: So while we were in Florence, I knew I needed

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Speaker 5: to sit down with someone who has known me my

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Speaker 5: whole life, the legendary Marilyn Arnold, also known as my Mom.

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Speaker 5: Marilyn was born and raised in Covington, Kentucky, just outside

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Speaker 5: of Florence, so she's seen decades of change in the area,

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Speaker 5: and I wanted to get her take on this mascot journey.

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Speaker 5: Per usual, she did not hold back.

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Speaker 14: You know they're going to say, oh, she's just a

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Speaker 14: trouble maker, come back to town to do this.

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Speaker 5: They want this to be a welcoming place, but a

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Speaker 5: Confederate general does not project that to a lot of people.

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Speaker 5: What do you think is keeping it there besides tradition

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Speaker 5: or maybe just tradition.

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Speaker 14: Racism? Racism? And I really believe that people need education,

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Speaker 14: and they keep saying they have, you know, diversity officers

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Speaker 14: everywhere and things like this, But this takes of real

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Speaker 14: education and some willingness to open up to yourself and

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Speaker 14: learn yourself and who you really are.

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Speaker 5: Growing up in Covington, Maryland experienced a ton of history,

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Speaker 5: from the dangers of Boone County as a sundowntown to

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Speaker 5: the slow progress of school integration. Eventually working for the

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Speaker 5: Board of Education in Covington for thirty two years, which

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Speaker 5: is the job that led her to capitalize on the

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Speaker 5: housing boom of the nineties and bring our family to

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Speaker 5: Florence in the house I grew up in while attending BHS.

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Speaker 14: When we moved to Florence, you would see rebel flags

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Speaker 14: on people's they'd have them on their license plates, they'd

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Speaker 14: have them. The Confederate flag they'd have it. They'd have

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Speaker 14: it on shirts. You'd buy the shirts in the store.

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Speaker 14: Sometime they'd sell them at the grocery store at Kroger,

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Speaker 14: you know, occasionally like they just kept your eye, make

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Speaker 14: it very clear they don't want you there. I mean,

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Speaker 14: you walk into the school to register your kids and

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Speaker 14: there's this pause and you're going and you feel it,

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Speaker 14: you know.

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Speaker 3: It's palpable.

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Speaker 14: It was like, what.

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Speaker 10: Is that?

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Speaker 3: You know, what is that feeling?

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Speaker 14: And you know it's almost you almost see a nervousness

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Speaker 14: of them while they're gathering the papers and they keep

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Speaker 14: looking over at you. You know, I've had you know,

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Speaker 14: them say well, what street is it? And I tell them,

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Speaker 14: I give them the address and they said, well, what

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Speaker 14: apartment is it? I said, I don't think there are

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Speaker 14: any apartments over there, and they said, well, what's your

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Speaker 14: apartment number? I said it's a house. Yeah, I said,

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Speaker 14: we we live in a house. And the lady looks

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Speaker 14: at me like.

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Speaker 3: How could this be possible?

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Speaker 14: Yeah, she looked at the paper like she looked at

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Speaker 14: it as if later on she's gonna go check. And

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Speaker 14: I just thought, oh, leave my kids here. Yeah, right,

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Speaker 14: I'm thinking, you know, this isative cell phones or anything.

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Speaker 14: I don't thinking what's going to happen of it's Boone County.

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Speaker 5: Long before Make America Great Again, Blue lives matter versus

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Speaker 5: Black lives matter, or hell even Obama, I was navigating

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Speaker 5: the halls of education during the George Bush era. John

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Speaker 5: Kerry was defeated in my senior year. Kentucky is known

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Speaker 5: historically for its political diversity. The pendulum swung between Republican

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Speaker 5: and Democratic control in various offices, but Boone County voted

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Speaker 5: seventy one percent in favor of Bush. Boone County voted

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Speaker 5: sixty seven percent in favor of Trump in twenty sixteen

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Speaker 5: and sixty six percent for Trump in twenty twenty. See

436
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 5: a pattern. Ninety percent of Boone identifies as white. However,

437
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 5: even in the seemingly monolithic landscape, there are ships afoot.

438
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 5: Over the past couple of decades, the non white population,

439
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 5: encompassing Black, Hispanic, American, Indian, Asian, and others, had seen

440
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 5: a steady increase. In two thousand, this demographic made up

441
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,520
Speaker 5: four percent, and by a twenty twenty two sis it

442
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 5: had risen to twelve percent. That's a lot of percentages

443
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:05,439
Speaker 5: to say that when I was in high school, there

444
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 5: were not a lot of black kids and not a

445
00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 5: lot of white kids would think about a black kid's

446
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,360
Speaker 5: perspective on mister rebel. They were busy with things. Kids

447
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 5: are busy with sports, dances, friends, and duh them all.

448
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,680
Speaker 8: I remember my brother and I both we both perceived

449
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 8: this whole rebel and Confederate flag things, this huge embarrassment, backwards,

450
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:25,160
Speaker 8: redneck sort.

451
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 3: Of icon that we didn't understand why it was there. Now. See,

452
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:30,640
Speaker 3: we didn't have that history either.

453
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,679
Speaker 8: Even though we had, you know, educated parents that were

454
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:36,600
Speaker 8: pretty good about exposing us to stuff, we weren't getting

455
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 8: the story about Boon County's history right. So we just thought,

456
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 8: this is stupid and doesn't belong here, and why are

457
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 8: he trying to identify us with Mississippi?

458
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, we didn't know we had lunchings here.

459
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 8: We didn't know we had I mean, we intellectually knew

460
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 8: that there was enslavement.

461
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 3: We thought that was in.

462
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 5: The st Yeah, I mean we taught that like Kentucky

463
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 5: was neutral.

464
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 3: That's what I was taught. Every year. Every time we

465
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:00,640
Speaker 3: hear that, every time.

466
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:04,360
Speaker 5: Meet Hillary Delaney, a librarian at the Boone County Library System.

467
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 5: She also helms the Borderlands Archive and History Center, where

468
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 5: her focus is on African American history in Boone County, Kentucky.

469
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 5: She's a Boone County graduate class of eighty six and

470
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 5: was definitely a member of Boone County High Schools first

471
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 5: ever computer club.

472
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 8: But yeah, so like in the eighties, we had what

473
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 8: are they the drill team, and they had the big

474
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,640
Speaker 8: you know, stars and bars on their uniforms, and yeah,

475
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 8: there were rebel flags around and there still are rebel

476
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 8: flags around, and it's just idiocracy to meet. We were

477
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 8: just blind to it when we were in high school.

478
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:34,959
Speaker 8: And there were you know a handful of kids who

479
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,159
Speaker 8: are African American who are probably real quiet about it,

480
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 8: I'm sure. And I think the eighties just toned up,

481
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 8: and you know, there were very few people there too

482
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 8: to say, hey, please don't do that. Do I think

483
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 8: that it's a fair and friendly, welcoming place for everyone

484
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 8: all the time.

485
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 5: No.

486
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 3: I went to book High School starting.

487
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one.

488
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 5: This is Jenavan Lanningham, class of nineteen ninety four. She

489
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 5: gets a lot of real estate in the Boone County

490
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 5: yearbooks from competing on the girls track team.

491
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 2: At Boone my freshman year. I remember rebel flags, like

492
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 2: being a football games. I actually was involved in sports,

493
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 2: and my older brother was too, and we had things

494
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 2: with rebel flags on them, sort of not really knowing

495
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 2: or understanding what that meant at all at age thirteen fourteen, fifteen.

496
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 2: I don't know of just maybe a handful of black

497
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,360
Speaker 2: students in the early nineties, and I think they all

498
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 2: were on the football team, like yeah, and maybe also

499
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 2: played some basketball.

500
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 3: But it was very white at the time.

501
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 12: About the time that I was getting there, the socioeconomics

502
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 12: of the community were starting to change. A higher percentage

503
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 12: of the population that was coming in was non white.

504
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 12: It was still predominantly white. Yeah.

505
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 5: This is Spencer's Imbroke class of twenty eleven. He has

506
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 5: a sweet photo as a sophomore playing piano and is

507
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 5: quoted saying, I play about four instruments. I play them

508
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,440
Speaker 5: either because their fun or they came naturally. Your books

509
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,119
Speaker 5: are so cute until you get to a photo of

510
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 5: someone posing with mister Rebel. Anyway, what was rebel spirit

511
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:07,679
Speaker 5: like when.

512
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 3: You were there?

513
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 12: I remember seeing mister Rebel at the football games and

514
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 12: pep rallies and things like that. I don't remember having

515
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,959
Speaker 12: like a strong attachment or affection for him other than

516
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 12: the fact that, like, hey, if he comes into the stands,

517
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 12: I'm gonna high find Yeah, just the things you do

518
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 12: at sports ball games.

519
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 10: Anyway.

520
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 9: Yeah.

521
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 5: Fully, fully, we're all pretty much on the same page

522
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 5: about what Boone was like. And some might say, well,

523
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 5: those experiences are in the past, that for Hillary, Jenna

524
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 5: and Spencer it was a different time. Hell that even

525
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 5: my experience as one of a handful of black kids

526
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 5: at BHS in the early two thousands, well that was

527
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 5: nearly twenty years ago. And I totally hear you, But

528
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 5: talk to kids today and it doesn't actually sound all

529
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 5: that different.

530
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 9: Uh. Yeah, I'm a freshman, I'm on the basketball team.

531
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,719
Speaker 9: I'm new to I like, I just moved from Louisville

532
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,199
Speaker 9: State to the school, and I came like kind of

533
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 9: late in the school.

534
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 3: So I was like, yeah, to all.

535
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:09,199
Speaker 5: This this is Quincy Jackson. He recently moved with his

536
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 5: family from Louisville, Kentucky to Florence, and as a current

537
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 5: student at Boone County High School.

538
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,959
Speaker 9: Coming from Louisville, it's like the verse is a lot

539
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 9: of different, like people my color a lot and then

540
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 9: coming here, first of all, it's called the rebels, so

541
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 9: I kind of like anticipated it to you know, it's

542
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 9: like it's way less diverse. It's a lot of like

543
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 9: white people for real. But yeah, but like the thing

544
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,479
Speaker 9: is like they're kind of like like they're big with

545
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 9: like rebel pride and stuff, like they have down the

546
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 9: walls a lot too.

547
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 5: Like when you say rebel pride as like a student

548
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 5: of color, like, what is it like when you see

549
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 5: those sort of messages, what does it mean to you?

550
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 3: It's like they're trying to like.

551
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 9: Celebrate it kind of like like why are we talking

552
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 9: about rebel pride?

553
00:27:58,960 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 14: Yeah?

554
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 5: Right, And like I mean you're a student there, do

555
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 5: you feel like, I guess, like when you hear the

556
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 5: word rebel, what do you feel like the school is

557
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 5: rebelling against? Like is there a thing?

558
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:12,360
Speaker 14: Yeah?

559
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 9: Because like the Confederates was called rebel and it seems

560
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 9: like they're just like, you know, team's racist. So yeah,

561
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 9: and like like our shooting machine has the rebel logo

562
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 9: on there, like the guy, Yeah, it has that on there.

563
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 5: So it's like it shoots the ball to you. You

564
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 5: shoot and you're looking at mister rebel literally a Confederate

565
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 5: general passing you the ball if anyone can, certainly Quincy

566
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 5: can agree that the Biscuits is a better name.

567
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 9: Right as a basketball player, I wouldn't really want it

568
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:43,479
Speaker 9: to be called the Boone County business.

569
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 6: That's fair.

570
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 5: You don't what it necessarily Okay, So the Biscuits is

571
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 5: also a controversial name, but for better reasons than the

572
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 5: Rebels is. Remember earlier when I said we were back

573
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 5: in Florence for Boone County's homecoming week. Well, now it's

574
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 5: Friday night, it's homecoming and we are in the stands

575
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 5: eager to experience the festivities. There's mister Rebel on a

576
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 5: shirt the little that's our guy. Yeah, festivities is maybe

577
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 5: over selling it. Homecoming at Boone County High School is

578
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 5: exactly as I remembered it, following a week of themed

579
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 5: spirit days at school, usually like Seventies Day or Pajama Day.

580
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 5: The friday we attend the game is somehow not school

581
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 5: spirit Day but USA Day. There's an after school parade

582
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 5: with kids from all over the district, including the feeder,

583
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 5: elementary and middle schools, and it stretches a few blocks

584
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 5: in front of the school. The band plays maybe two songs,

585
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 5: but they're not powerful enough. To be heard at any distance.

586
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 5: There's candy being thrown from convertibles, where the smiling homecoming

587
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 5: queen nominees wave and their respective teams and clubs walk

588
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 5: beside them. The members of the student council and dance

589
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 5: team gently hand candy to the little kids on the sidewalk,

590
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 5: but there's more candy than attendees by one hundred times,

591
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 5: so it'll likely just be littered there. But also it's

592
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 5: high school and homecoming, and it's hard not to get

593
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 5: swept up in it despite everything. Okay, for they speak

594
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 5: to drama, let's go. I used to go to them,

595
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 5: and you why people? I love it.

596
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 3: There used to be way more blue is forensics.

597
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 5: One thing that feels different is the makeup of the crowd.

598
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 5: Boone County High School is now notably diverse. There are

599
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 5: kids of all shades with all shades of hair color.

600
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 5: That there are three black girls with braids on the

601
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 5: middle school team. I really don't want to cry, but

602
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 5: I'm like, I remember they just there was only one

603
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 5: and it was like that was by design, like they

604
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 5: just really didn't want it. It's kind of hard to

605
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 5: ignore at this point that there's just more people in

606
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 5: color yeah, they seem less repressed than when I walk

607
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 5: the halls, and frankly, it's something the school should take

608
00:30:58,120 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 5: pride in.

609
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 14: Oh god, yeah, and then all the traffic's coming.

610
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 7: All right, do you want to walk back?

611
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 5: But now that the parade is over, it's time for

612
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 5: the game. I don't recognize anybody's got some.

613
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 3: Great tunes to go along with all the excitement here

614
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 3: for the rebel fans.

615
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 9: Athletic officials are seldom given the appreciation they deserve.

616
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 5: They are given the response when we enter the stadium.

617
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 5: It's clear that this event isn't a big deal to

618
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 5: the school community. The stands are half empty, and everyone's

619
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 5: sort of milling about, buying walking tacos and catching up

620
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 5: with each other.

621
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 12: Please rise and remove your caps for the singing of

622
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 12: the national anthem by the Boone County Choir and alumni

623
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 12: from the choirs.

624
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 5: You can hear the choir singing the national anthem of

625
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 5: the United States and not the Confederacy, so that's a

626
00:31:51,480 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 5: good sign. The pep band is only a couple of

627
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 5: leaster sections away, but if they're playing anything, no one

628
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 5: can really hear it. There's a computer program playing radio

629
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 5: edits of music and every few beats we hear you're

630
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 5: listening to game time radio. I wanted to talk to

631
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 5: students who are at the game about how they experienced

632
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 5: school spirit at Boone County, but well, most weren't really

633
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 5: able to come up with much. So what brings you

634
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 5: to homecoming?

635
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 8: You know?

636
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 10: I just wanted to come and watch the football players

637
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 10: play football?

638
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 13: Nice?

639
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 3: Okay? So yeah, yeah, and she invited me.

640
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 5: So, like, what does a school spirit mean to you? Like,

641
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 5: what about the school if anything makes you feel sort

642
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 5: of spirited and excited?

643
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 8: Blue?

644
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 5: The color blue blue?

645
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's fair, Kylie. What makes you feel school spirit?

646
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 11: Anything?

647
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 5: No clue, no clue, that's fair. The first half of

648
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 5: the game highlighted two things. One, the rebels are no

649
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 5: good this season. Maybe part of the reason and no

650
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 5: one seemed invested in the game was because the team

651
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 5: was down thirty points at halftime. The second thing was

652
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 5: how desperately the school needs a mascot. The dance team

653
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 5: and the cheerleaders were never really in sync and mostly

654
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 5: seemed to be talking amongst themselves or visiting with classmates.

655
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 5: Wouldn't the mascot be at least a place to focus

656
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 5: your attention? And not on the flailing athletic department that

657
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 5: seems to have spent more money on headsets than good coaches.

658
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 5: Halftime had a lot to make up for, and it

659
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 5: really didn't.

660
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 3: Welcome food.

661
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,479
Speaker 7: The Country High School is homecoming celebration recognizing the class

662
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 7: of twenty twenty three twenty twenty four.

663
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 5: I want to disclaim right now that I'm not making

664
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 5: fun of the kids. They're just trying their best. Adolescence

665
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 5: is a tough time, that said, Imagine Beyonce's legendary homecoming

666
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 5: performance when she headlined Coachella in twenty eighteen. Really picture

667
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 5: the band outfits, the energy. Now imagine the bizarro opposite

668
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 5: a slow, dirge like and two long procession of the

669
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 5: Jackson Five's I'll Be There, played by a sad marching

670
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 5: band representing.

671
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 3: The girls cross country team.

672
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 5: I think he was laid the teacher your name? Teenage

673
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 5: girls in suits being walked by their fathers down the

674
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 5: field between two baby shower inspired blue balloon arches. The

675
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 5: announcer says that the candidates have been judged based on

676
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 5: a few different categories.

677
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 12: Are evaluated based on toys, personality, appearance, and cultural awareness.

678
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 5: Of the notable ones was their appearance, and even though

679
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 5: that's implied, I mean it's high school after all, it's

680
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 5: still wild to admit out loud when there's not even

681
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 5: a check for the winner. Also, cultural awareness, Loo First.

682
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 1: Please Help Us and Welcome Back are twenty twenty two,

683
00:34:58,480 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three homecoming.

684
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 5: Most people in the crowd are looking at their phones

685
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 5: or waiting to use the bathroom. Some students cheer for

686
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 5: their friends when they're announced as homecoming Court and queen,

687
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 5: and then the homecoming court walks off the field, the

688
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,839
Speaker 5: band packs up, and it's just over. There's no high

689
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 5: energy performance complete with choreograph moves, no cheerleaders rushing on

690
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 5: to midfield to hype up the crowd. The whole thing

691
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 5: felt deflated, like the balloon arches that struggled to stay

692
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 5: up in the evening's fall breeze. The game never got better.

693
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 5: There was no made for TV come from behind ending.

694
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 5: The Boon County Rebels, like their Confederate namesakes, lost thirty

695
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 5: six to seven. But I left shortly after the second

696
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 5: half started. It had been a long week and I

697
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 5: had an early flight in the morning, but mostly I

698
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:49,240
Speaker 5: was exhausted coming home starting these hard conversations about mascots, yes,

699
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 5: but also about racism and history and about what it

700
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 5: takes to make real change. It was more emotionally taxing

701
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 5: than I had expected. I'll be honest. There was a

702
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 5: part of me that thought I'd come back to Florence,

703
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 5: talk to a few people, and bam, the Boone County

704
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 5: Biscuits would come running onto the field. But let's face it,

705
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 5: that's not how change happens. And as long a week

706
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 5: as it was, it's clear now that this is just

707
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 5: the start of something. Because this week was a lot

708
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,239
Speaker 5: of things, but the main thing it was was a

709
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 5: huge reminder that these kids, the ones at Boone County

710
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 5: High School today and the ones coming into it tomorrow,

711
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 5: kids that look different than the ones that were there

712
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 5: when I was in school, counting every black kid in

713
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 5: a class, they deserve so much more than they have

714
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 5: right now. It's about more than a mascot, right A

715
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 5: mascot is a symbol for the school. It signals what

716
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 5: they believe in. It's literally what they cheer for, and

717
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 5: they deserve to be proud of their school in all

718
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 5: they've accomplished there, and to see that pride reflected back

719
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 5: not with Rebel Pride, but with something better, something beautiful.

720
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 5: The homecoming game may have been uninspiring, but ultimately I

721
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:57,879
Speaker 5: left Florence inspired, inspired that maybe, just maybe change can

722
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 5: happen here, and inspired to try my hardest to get

723
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 5: it done this season.

724
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 12: On Rebel Spirit, just tell me you're not gonna name

725
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,320
Speaker 12: my baseball team after a goddamn water tower.

726
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 7: John Alexander Way, that's the guy individual that came to

727
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 7: the school saying that God sent him to talk to

728
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 7: me about the mascot switch.

729
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 3: Is a leader? You choose hills that you want to

730
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 3: die on.

731
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 10: There's a safe way to reveal mascot, and they went

732
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 10: in the opposite direction.

733
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,399
Speaker 3: They are called segregation academies.

734
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 12: When Civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools,

735
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 12: these charter schools were exempt from that.

736
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 3: Why would we want to be the losing team. I

737
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 3: just take all the other stuff out of it.

738
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 1: We're rocking the team with the hell.

739
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 4: The chair of Mom's ce Liberties is one of the

740
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 4: board members.

741
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 9: Oh there are meetings like this is a foreur alarm

742
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 9: fires suddenly.

743
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 5: Rebel Spirit is a production of Ninth Planet Audio and

744
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 5: association with iHeart Podcasts, reporting and writing by me Akila Hughes.

745
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 5: I'm also an executive producer and the host produced by

746
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 5: Dan Sinker, edited by Josie A.

747
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: Zahm Our.

748
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 5: Assistant editor is Jennifer Dean. Music composed by Charlie Sun,

749
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 5: Sound design and mixing by Josie A.

750
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 13: Zahmb Our.

751
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 5: Theme song is All the Things I Couldn't Say, performed

752
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,919
Speaker 5: by Busty and the Bass, courtesy of Arts and Crafts Productions, Inc.

753
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 5: Our production coordinator is Kyle Hinton. Our clearance coordinator is

754
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 5: Anna Sunenshein. Production accounting by Dill pried Singh. Additional research

755
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 5: support from Janie Dillard Abraham Lincoln Boys performed by Hal Lovelin.

756
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 5: Executive producers from Ninth Planet Audio are Elizabeth Baquet and

757
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 5: Jimmy Miller. Special thanks to Jay Becker and the whole

758
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 5: team at BLDG, the Florence Yawls, Amber Hoffmann, Hilary Delaney,

759
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 5: and Leslie Chambers. If you have a racist mascot at

760
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 5: your high school, or are an alumni of a high

761
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 5: school with a racist mascot and want to share your

762
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,720
Speaker 5: own experience, please email us at Rebelspirit Podcast at gmail

763
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 5: dot com. We would love to hear from you,