The Civil War ended well over 150 years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that Americans begun renouncing flags, statues and monuments paying homage to Southern traitors. Other symbols of racist oppression are also under attack.
In Texas, the shift has put one of the world’s most storied law enforcement agencies under harsh scrutiny.
New book by journalist Doug J. Swanson, “Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers,” relays their savagery, lawlessness, and racism.
“They burned peasant villages and slaughtered innocents,” he writes. “They committed war crimes. Their murders of Mexicans and Mexican Americans made them as feared on the border as the Ku Klux Klan in the South.”
“The terms ‘death squads’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ would not enter common usage for another 60 years or so,” Swanson notes, “but that was what the Rangers were and what they did.”
Steve Chapman of Chicago Tribune wrote a column on Wednesday that called for Major League Baseball team Texas Rangers to change their name because it honors a police force that had a brutal and racist history.
He wrote:
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“In light of all this, the name, like the Confederate names on Army bases, deserves to be relegated to the garbage dump of history. It’s an undeserved tribute that reflects a widespread ignorance, at best, of the Rangers’ malignant past.
It may be argued that the team name honors the current agency, not the worst elements of its history. But without the history and the legends, the franchise would not have adopted the name. No one would name a major league team “The Police” or “The Highway Patrol.”
The Rangers name is an affront to Hispanics, African Americans and anyone who favors racial equity. It should be an intolerable embarrassment to the owners and fans.”
In light of what has been going on in 2020 since the death of George Floyd by cops, the Rangers’ changing their name might be in their future.
