Trigger warning: police violence
A video released Monday shows a school resource officer at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina dragging a seated student from her desk as a teacher and her classmates looked on. The student did not appear to be combative as the officer placed her in a chokehold, flipped her to the ground and violently arrested her.
A high school senior at Robert E. Lee high school in San Antonio, TX is working to get her school's name changed from that of a Confederate general who fought to preserve the enslavement of humans in the South.
Kayla Wilson is hoping to get 1,000 signatures on her online petition before a school board meeting in August.
The petition reads:
In the wake of the Charleston shooting, where a racist man shot up a black church, people have called for the removal of the confederate flag which still flies on the South Carolina capitol grounds. Even though Lee high school has long removed the confederate flag from flying, the confederate flag still remains paved into the ground of Lee high school. This flag represents decades of hate and racism. So any affiliation to do with Robert E. Lee and confederacy should be removed as well.
Although we can not erase our past, we must not celebrate parts of our past that were most treacherous, and continuing to let the Robert E. Lee name live on is doing just that. This school is far overdue for a name change.
Wilson is also hoping to change the school's mascot and remove a confederate flag mosaic in the school's courtyard. She told
KSAT, "Our mascot is a Confederate soldier, and also the name of our dancers and cheerleaders -- Dixie Drillers and Rebel Rousers -- I just think that's a little bit inappropriate."
Despite efforts to keep the name, Wilson has received support from her community. "I have been contacted by alumni and people in San Antonio and they (agree that) the name should have been changed a long time ago. It's long overdue for a name change," Wilson said.
Wilson is hoping that the school is renamed after someone like George W. Lee, a civil rights leader.
You can view Wilson's interview with KSAT
here and sign the petition
here.
Photo: Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News
Source:
KSAT
