Joe Will Probably Go

On August 22, 2017, I posted a blog titled "Josephine!' and I am proud of it.

The words came out of my fingers and into my computer with such ease on that one. I had some great lines in it. While writing about the mess in Charlottesville, Virginia I said:

 "From the Neo-Nazis and J. Crew Ku Klux Klan kids to the Fascist Antifa to the Charlottesville Police being apparently at Dunkin Donuts to President Trump's attempt to calm the nation down by saying exactly the wrong words, it wasn't one of our brilliant, shining moments."

I also quoted from then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who announced she wanted to remove some Confederate generals that are honored in Statutory Hall. I added my own parenthetical comments.

“The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible", (If by "always" you mean you realized last week) Ms. Pelosi said, putting pressure on the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to act. (Which he did by wetting his pants) "If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately.” (Which were put in by Democrats in the first place, but don't even think about that.)

One of those generals is kind of personal for me: Joseph E Wheeler. My high school alma mater was named for him.

As you might have heard, there is a lot of unrest today. It has been in all of the papers.

I'm not going to go into everything, except to say now we are in the stage where we need to rename places to make things right. People are suggesting renaming Fort Polk, Fort Bragg, etc, because Polk and Bragg were Confederate generals and merely being Confederates means Polk and Bragg were traitors

The AROUND TOWN column in the Marietta Daily Journal, the newspaper of record here in Cobb County recently published an item which said, "...parents of Cobb schools students have begun discussing on social media whether a name change is due for Wheeler High School."

AROUND TOWN goes on to report: "Cobb school board member Charisse Davis, who represents Wheeler, said she has heard from some families who are interested in changing the school’s name. 'I think that this is just a start in Cobb as these conversations happen all around the country, including among military leaders, who are calling for bases to be renamed,' she said."

A newspaper called East Cobb News had even more information about "conversations"  floating around East Cobb.  It reports that a petition to change the name of both Wheeler High School and Walton High School were placed on Change.org.

The petition to change the name of Walton High School was placed by a current Walton High School student.

“No one ever talks about how George Walton was a white supremacist, belonged to a slave owning family, and spent his political career championing white supremacy in Georgia by stripping Native Americans time and time again of their land. For a school well known on the national stage, it is sickening that they choose to carry themselves using a man who represents one thing: continuing white supremacy in the American South.”

No one ever talks about how George Walton was all these awful things because nobody ever talks about George Walton.  All I knew about him was that he signed The Declaration of Independence. I guess I assumed he was all of those things because he was a man of means and that's what they did in the 18th Century. I was around at that time because Walton was created to alleviate overcrowding at Wheeler. I know because I was there during the split sessions time in the history of Wheeler.  I can't say why they chose the name of George Walton, but it probably had to do with the Bicentennial, which occurred the first year it was opened.

The student goes on to describe mistreatment from other students. Wow, Richy Rich high school students being insensitive to someone's feelings and being mean. I've never heard that before.   I'm not quite sure what George Walton has to do with it. However, if someone wants to say Walton students are jerks, I wouldn't argue with them.

The East Cobb News also printed part of the Wheeler petition which was created by a private Facebook group called "Wildcats For A Change" who describes themselves as members "Lifelong members of Wildcat Nation".

“Students do not deserve to attend a school whose namesake celebrates a Confederate history and one that was named for a hateful purpose: to hurt and shame Black youth that were, by court order, integrated into our county’s white school system. It does not go unnoticed that the school was named after the passing of Brown v Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. It does not go unnoticed that the school was named after the state of Georgia finally began to adhere to the ruling, seven years after it passed. It does not go unnoticed that the Cobb County School Board finally voted to desegregate in 1965—the same year they named Joseph Wheeler High School.”

Well.  I'm not sure about the "hateful purpose".  It would be interesting to see if the"Wildcats For A Change" can produce some historical documents, transcripts, etc, showing the Cobb County School Board wanted to hurt and shame young people. 

Charisse Davis did say she did not see this renaming issue coming up before the Cobb County Board of Education "anytime soon".   She did sign the petition.  I would say she has made up her mind on the matter.

A couple of things. I lived across the street from Wheeler for ten years. My brothers and I all graduated from Wheeler.  My wife and her family graduated from Wheeler. I got married at the small church that was next door to Wheeler and went to church there until 1993.  I know the area.

I don't remember anyone and I mean anyone, ever teaching me it was okay to hate anybody. If that was their reason to name the school Wheeler, they have failed miserably.

The times, they have changed  If the district's democratically elected leaders and the people of the district want to change the name of Wheeler High School, more power to them.

I would ask that there would be actual "conversations", you know, where two sides exchange ideas and try to come to a consensus instead of the current model which everybody tries to clap back at each other.

The petition is correct that the "namesake celebrates a Confederate history".  However, I would argue he was more than a goofball Confederate general running around saying "Fergit Hell".  He was accepted back into the US Army at age 61 (my age now) and was a general in the Spanish-American War. The division that he led included Theodore Roosevelt.  Wheeler  is one of the few Confederates buried in Arlington National  Cemetery

I would say he was forgiven for his transgressions by the United States. Maybe we should too.