Amarillo sits half a continent away from the turmoil that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., where groups of protesters erupted in a riot this past weekend.

One group sought to protest attempts to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee; this group comprised white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis. The other group opposed the first group. They clashed. One woman was killed when someone rammed a car through a crowd.

The nation has been buried under the fallout.

So, what does this have to do with Amarillo?

We have in this city a statue commemorating a Confederate officer. It’s at Ellwood Park. We also have a school named after the same Confederate general who became the focus of the violence in Charlottesville. What has fascinated me for the two-plus decades I’ve lived in Amarillo is that Robert E. Lee Elementary School educates a student population that comprises a significant number of African-American children. Does that fascinate you, too? It should.

Amarillo sits out here in the middle of the nation. We seem to be somewhat immune to many of the disputes that erupt on either oceanic coast. I’m wondering if our community’s insular outlook is going to last as the national debate rages and roils over these Confederate monuments.

Amarillo’s public school system has named many of its campuses after individuals responsible for Texas’s independence. The names of Houston, Travis, Bowie, Crockett, Fannin and Lamar all are meaningful to Texas history. We have schools named after pioneer families; a school has the name of a Spanish explorer; other campuses don’t bear the names of individuals.

Lee is a bit different. I’ve noted already that the general fought to destroy the Union. Yet in many communities he is saluted, honored. The Confederacy is part of our national “heritage,” people insist. It also symbolizes a bloody war that was fought over the enslavement of human beings, some of whose descendants attend school in a building named to “honor” someone who fought to destroy the nation — and keep those people in bondage.

Do I advocate changing the name of the school? I’m going to remain neutral on that one — at least for the time being.

My interest at this moment lies in the possibility that this national discussion is going to find its way to our community. All it will take, I suppose, is for parents to broach the subject of changing the name of Lee Elementary School with the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees.

I’ll wait to see if this intense national debate finds its way to the Texas High Plains.