Sent to me this morning by my husband, who may or may not glance occasionally at ESPN when he is supposed to be working – Ole Miss Tweaks Fight Song:
The University of Mississippi has shortened one of its fight songs to discourage football fans from chanting “the South will rise again” during part of the tune, which critics say is an offensive reminder of the region’s intolerant past.
However, some fans have continued to recite the chant at the end of the song, “From Dixie With Love,” despite the change made last week at the chancellor’s request. The Ole Miss band performs the medley before and after games…
Dan Jones, who became Ole Miss chancellor in July, said he asked the school’s band director, David Wilson, to modify the song to support the efforts of the Associated Student Body [ASB]. He said he has received complaints from alumni that the slogan is offensive…
Brian Ferguson, 26, head of the Colonel Reb Foundation, said he views the university actions as an attempt to silence students.
“I think it’s a big to-do about nothing. There were very few people other than the students who knew to say it,” said Ferguson, whose organization works to preserve traditions at Ole Miss. But Ferguson agreed that the chant really isn’t a tradition.
“If the students get fired up and upset enough about it, they’re going to continue to say it. Our biggest fear is that that’s going to lead them to eliminate ‘From Dixie With Love,’ altogether.”
The song blends the Confederate Army’s fight song, “Dixie,” with the Union Army’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” according to Peter K. Frost, a visiting professor of history and international studies at Ole Miss.
The school has worked to erase its image as a bastion of the Old South, which was solidified in 1962 when James Meredith’s admission as the first black student led to a bloody standoff.
The university six years ago decided not to have an on-field mascot during sporting events, getting rid of the long-standing Colonel Rebel, a white-haired old man who carries a cane and resembles a plantation owner.
Yeah. Good move.
Sophomore Cortez Moss, director of communications for the ASB, said the organization is trying to explain to students why the phrase is offensive.
“You take back on that slave mentality,” said Moss, who is black. “I know the South won’t rise again and the South can’t rise again.” …
Roun McNeill, a former ASB president who is now in law school at Ole Miss, said his own decision to refrain from the chant was easily made.
“I said the chant one day and there was a black family sitting in front of me and they turned around and gave me this look like I hurt them,” McNeill said.
I passed this link on to Kate and Cayce (both Southerners) this morning, and we’ve been discussing it via email throughout the day. I think we can all understand that there are people who cling to traditions such as chanting “the South will rise again” and obviously mean nothing racist or separatist by it. The problem is that such a slogan — particularly when considered in the context of the school’s not-so-distant history – does evoke ideas that make it less benign than other expressions of school spirit and regional pride might be.
I’m not a Southerner by birth or heritage, but I have lived south of the Mason-Dixon line (first Baltimore, then DC, and now my current undisclosed location) since college. Even in our town, a place so blue that Democrats basically run unchallenged in every election, I see a surprising number of Confederate flag bumper stickers. And that’s a big culture shock for an Oregon girl, guys. We have a long and glorious racist history of our own in the northwest — which I hope to post about one of these days — but it’s just very different, and is not easily referenced by flags, slogans, or bumper stickers.
I don’t think that every person who displays a Confederate flag is racist. But I do wonder what on earth would make them want to display it at all, knowing the message it sends and how hurtful it is to so many people. It’s just insufficient, given our history in this country, to say, “I don’t mean it in an offensive way.” There’s a responsibility in such cases to think about what these symbols and traditions say to other people, not just what they might mean to you. In Cayce’s words: “I’ve never understood why tainted tradition is more important to folks than other people’s feelings.”
So, what will the students and alumni of Ole Miss chant now, instead of “the South will rise again”?
Earlier this month, the Ole Miss student government passed a resolution suggesting the chant be replaced by the phrase, “To hell with LSU.”
Now there’s a slogan we can all get on board with. Evocation of fraught racial history: no. Mild profanity and the damnation of our athletic rivals: hell yes! What could be more American?
Thanks for the quote, Nikki! Great post, BTW.
Even in our town, a place so blue that Democrats basically run unchallenged in every election, I see a surprising number of Confederate flag bumper stickers.
My husband is from a town very much like this and I can tell you many of those bumper stickers aren’t well-intentioned, in fact, they probably mean what you think they mean. At best, it’s misplaced (and possibly dangerous) nostalgia for a time when the South was seemingly untouchable and white supremacy reigned. At worst, it’s a frightening clarion call for a return to those days.
We’re both from North Carolina, a state that saw sit-ins in Greensboro, early decisions in favor of integration in Charlotte (Mecklenburg County Schools), and a virulent series of Klan, et al. activity all along the way. If you ever want to learn about what it took to be a white (or black) anti-racist Christian living in those times, I’d highly suggest one of the books in our Reading List tab at the top: Blood Done Sign My Name.
I’m glad Ole Miss is making this step. The fact that there is still some resentment about the change just proves there’s still work to be done. Now if they’d just reconsider that there mascot…
I’ve never lived anywhere near Mississippi, and have little familiarity with Ole Miss. I have, however, heard Southerners use phrases along the lines of “the South will rise again.”
In my admittedly limited experience, these weren’t folks who actually expect any future secession, much less a successful one, from the United States. Nor would they really want one. Most of them love the United States.
I think for most of them this kind of language was intended to generally express something like “we love our home,” “our home is best,” and, at least sometimes, “other places suck.”
In other words, the intention was something comparable to regional pride slogans from “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” to “Don’t Mess With Texas” to “I <3 NY," common-homeland pride slogans like "Erin Go Bragh" among Irish-Americans, rooting for the home team by shouting "We're #1!" (regardless of actual standings), or Duke fans chanting "go to hell, Carolina!"
The obvious problem, as Nikki rightly points out, is that a slogan like "the South will rise again" naturally evokes ideas that make it far less benign than many other expressions of regional pride and school spirit.
When white people put those Confederate flag stickers on their cars that say “heritage not hate,” they’re trying to say “loving my home isn’t about hating black people.” The problem is, they’re not thinking about how the symbolism itself says a lot more than they intend, and the message conveyed is contradictory.
Because “the South will rise again” or the Confederate flag inevitably recalls seccession and the defense of human slavery. Because “the South will rise again” or the Confederate flag inevitably calls to mind thousands upon thousands of lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and overt white supremacism and racism. Inevitably.
I honestly don’t think many of the Southerners I’ve known consciously desire or support any of these things. They don’t intend them. What they fail to understand is that serious harm can actually be done even when one doesn’t have evil intentions.
I completely agree with Nikki and Cayce when they say It’s just insufficient, given our history in this country, to say, “I don’t mean it in an offensive way.” There’s a responsibility in such cases to think about what these symbols and traditions say to other people, not just what they might mean to you. In Cayce’s words: “I’ve never understood why tainted tradition is more important to folks than other people’s feelings.”
I know I’ll probably get teased for quoting Hootie & the Blowfish, but this is a hometown sentiment I heartily agree with: “Why is a rebel flag flying o’er the Statehouse walls? Tired of hearing this shit ’bout ‘heritage not hate.’ Time to make the world a better place.”
We Southerners who love our home and hate racism need different set of symbols to express what we really love.
We Southerners who love our home and hate racism need different set of symbols to express what we really love.
True. And many of us who love our southern homeplaces recognize the embattled history we have inherited. And it continues in these discussions about how we talk about that history. It doesn’t just end with a flag. It includes public places and monuments and the people we recognize as heroes.
When we first moved to Virginia, one of the gubernatorial candidates was proposing a Confederate history month. Even though I was from NC, I totally didn’t get that! But Virginians have an even deeper dedication to some of those relics than we collectively do because of the state’s central role in the Civil War. That candidate lost, BTW, but that was far from one of the issues that took the guy down.
I also think many people external to the South (read: Yankees) use our attachment to those old and hurtful symbols to deflect the question of racism in their own communities. As in, “well we might have a problem here or there, but it’s not like we’re The South.” As long as we hold on to these things, we’re giving other parts of the country a scapegoat and a means for ignoring their own issues.
I also think many people external to the South (read: Yankees) use our attachment to those old and hurtful symbols to deflect the question of racism in their own communities. As in, “well we might have a problem here or there, but it’s not like we’re The South.” As long as we hold on to these things, we’re giving other parts of the country a scapegoat and a means for ignoring their own issues.
I remember when we first moved here, my husband’s brother said to me, “I just never pictured you guys living in the South. Isn’t it just full of gun-toting rednecks?” (He obviously did not count our former places of residence, Baltimore and DC, as “the South,” even though in many ways those places are more Southern than people realize.) My brother-in-law was like 18 at the time — and he had spent his entire life in Connecticut — so perhaps I need to cut him some slack, but I remember just staring at him aghast, before I laughed and said, “I don’t know, are all people from New England Yankee snobs?”
I’ve definitely gotten some strange looks and comments from friends who’ve never lived in the South, but still feel content to judge it as omg-WAY-more-racist than where THEY are from/live [fill in the blank]. This, as you say, keeps them from taking their own prejudices and problems seriously, because they think there are people who are way worse than they are. When in fact you just see different types of racism, with different histories, as you move from place to place — but there’s no part of this country that gets a free pass, that’s for sure.
When in fact you just see different types of racism, with different histories, as you move from place to place — but there’s no part of this country that gets a free pass, that’s for sure.
Ain’t that the truth. I grew up in a city where the Confederate flag hung over the Statehouse. There’s prejudice and racism where I’m from. But it really wasn’t until I went to Ohio that I heard the N word thrown around out loud and in public, and similar overtly and consciously racist comments addressed to me by strangers with the expectation of agreement. It wasn’t until I moved to Ohio that the Klan ever threatened to march through my neighborhood. And Ohioans try to tell me that they’re not as racist as Southerners? Hell no. Their racism is just different.
I also remember my mother telling me about her experience of living in Kansas back in the late 60s. She was totally unprepared for the open hatred of Latinos and Native Americans.
When we first moved to Virginia, one of the gubernatorial candidates was proposing a Confederate history month. Even though I was from NC, I totally didn’t get that!
I’m from South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, home of the first Civil War battle, and I totally don’t get that. It makes no sense.
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