Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Things have been a little tense about race on Ole Miss's campus since the school was founded. Wright Thompson's ESPN centerpiece on the integration riots and the last great Rebel football team is required reading for anyone with an interest in the subject matter; suffice it to say that there are a lot of old wounds that aren't going to heal any time soon.
But times are a changing, and Ole Miss recently banned their band's traditional playing of From Dixie With Love because people keep shouting "and the South will rise again" at the end of it:
This, if you know the context—it's a favored KKK slogan of the sort that ends up on burned churches in Mississippi—is at least kind of racist, if indirectly so. I don't think anyone doing the chant thinks of it as racist, but they don't get to decide. (Remarkably, Wikipedia says the chant started in 2005(!!!). That's [citation needed], though.)
Enter student protest and a chancellor ban:
[Chancellor Dan] Jones released a letter to the university community Nov. 2 that said if students did not stop chanting "the South will rise again," he would ask the band to stop playing the song because of its role as a "trigger" for the chant.
"Consequently, I have asked the band not to play 'From Dixie with Love' at upcoming athletics events," Jones said. "The absence of this song will send a clear message that the university is neither facilitating nor indirectly condoning the chant."
If I know pissed-off, petulant student sections—and as a Michigan hockey fan, I certainly do—this is going to lead to a thousand kids with this song as their ringtones and random bursts of "the South will rise again" much more frequently than would otherwise occur. That's what students do.
It's also leading to a ... wait for it ... KKK rally!
Shane Tate, the North Mississippi great titan for the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, confirmed via e-mail the KKK will rally on Ole Miss’ campus in protest of the Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones’ decision to remove "From Dixie with Love" from the Ole Miss band’s song selection.
I bet you're thinking this guy has a spectacular quote on the way. You are 100 percent correct:
"We aren’t coming there to cause problems or cause trouble," Tate said. "Trouble has already been caused by a handful at Ole Miss, including the black student body president, who wants to shape Ole Miss into yet another liberal sodomite college."
There is no way that guy said "aren't." No way. The concept "liberal sodomite college" can't exist in a brain that doesn't interpret that word as "ain't."
So the KKK swoops in to protest the elimination of a chant that people eliminated because they think it's racist, dropping bombs about the black student body president's goal of having every Ole Miss undergraduate buggering hobos by 2012. This is almost the only thing that can overcome a student section's tendency towards pointless belligerence. Dollars to donuts this is the act that kills the chant once and for all; it could be the fan behavior equivalent of the 37-member Houston Nutt recruiting class that finally shamed the SEC into limits on oversigning.
If the KKK was secretly a parody group working to eliminate racism nationwide, would they act any differently?
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
Comments
Oh
My
God
This kinda stuff still happens in America, I’m never watching an Ole Miss game again and I’m telling EVERYBODY about this
Alt> Flie> Print
by DContheRise on Nov 19, 2009 5:07 PM EST reply actions
southern racist hicks
south should get invaded again
North 1
South 0
by Lou_Holtz_Weis on Nov 19, 2009 5:12 PM EST reply actions
This is not good….These inbreds are going to get the song banned for sure now.
by pigsooie on Nov 19, 2009 5:23 PM EST reply actions
I am missing something. Who gives a **** what the KKK thinks or wants so why was this even reported ?
by Marvin Wankerstein on Nov 19, 2009 5:31 PM EST reply actions
DC, Please don’t blame Ole Miss for this. It is these kind of whackos that university is trying hard to distance themselves from.
by JohnnyLaRue on Nov 19, 2009 7:11 PM EST reply actions
DC, Please don’t blame Ole Miss for this. It is these kind of whackos that the university is trying hard to distance themselves from. The students have voted to officially substitute the offending lyrics with "Go to Hell LSU."
As an LSU fan that makes me proud, but it still disgusts me that racist buffoons have hijacked the Rebel flag and the lyrics "The South Shall Rise Again!" Ole Miss is not trying to bring back the Civil War!
by JohnnyLaRue on Nov 19, 2009 7:22 PM EST reply actions
Loved this post!
"Ole Miss" could distance itself from these whackos by calling itself the University of Mississippi, for one.
As a South Carolinian, I reiterate our common refrain on everything from academics to obesity - Thank God for Mississippi.
by tkbone on Nov 19, 2009 7:24 PM EST reply actions
The school can try to fix the image all they want but if thats how the fans feel thats what you are a school with part of it’s fanbase racist’s but at the same time as a believer in the first amendment the kkk has every right to protest if they do it peacefully
by malcolm chomsky on Nov 19, 2009 7:48 PM EST reply actions
actually you uninformed bafoons, ‘the south will rise again’ refers to the period of reconstruction after the civil war…but the KKK angle sells more i guess
by YouShouldBeGlad on Nov 19, 2009 8:22 PM EST reply actions
To L-H-W The North did invade the South again right after the Civil War when the carpet baggers invaded the South with the blessings of some politicians. They ravaged what was left of the South. Those who are racist in the south are of a small minority. So people please don’t judge us all by the idiocy of a few.
by snowhill on Nov 19, 2009 8:26 PM EST reply actions
Thank God I live in California!! Yikes!!
by SailorGabe on Nov 19, 2009 11:41 PM EST reply actions
The KKK just make themselves look stupider with every word. I have no problem with Ole Miss or even them calling themselves Rebels. If the school was smart, they would ignore the KKK and get ready with their preparation for their next game…this shouldnt have been a story. You give these necks pub and shame a university that is trying to bury its sordid past.
by blackbandit20 on Nov 19, 2009 11:59 PM EST reply actions
I find it interesting that these things happen EVERY YEAR at ole miss, but the other schools in the state don’t seem to have ANY problems. Much less the rest of the SEC schools.
Something needs to change.
1. dixie
2. rebel flags
3. basketball coach plead guilty to a hate crime and still has his job
4. ’the south will rise again"
5. colonel reb (plantation owner) and the name "ole miss"
If they would change those five things, they could gain a lot of credibility. As it is, it’s unfortunate that the make Mississippi and the rest of the south look bad. There’s enough misinformation out there without the ‘evidence’ supplied by this university.
by aubie1979 on Nov 20, 2009 12:31 AM EST reply actions
The KKK has rights! Same as garbage feeders like al sharpton and jesse jackson.
by Forearmshiver on Nov 20, 2009 7:33 AM EST reply actions
WOW . . . This story is so ridiculous that I actually laughed at a L_H_W post!
by WillyZabka on Nov 20, 2009 9:44 AM EST reply actions
Well… I hate Ole Miss, but not for wanting to sing their fight song…but because I am a gator and they got us last year! The GATORS will rise again!
by Mhartuf on Nov 20, 2009 9:46 AM EST reply actions
Eventually the KKK is going to realize no one wants to side with the them and start arguing against the use of the song. And once against life will imitate South Park
by wile_e8 on Nov 20, 2009 10:03 AM EST reply actions
Let me tell you what an interesting poll would be. I would love to know which group is disliked the most – the ACLU or the modern KKK?
JACOB HORN ASSOCIATED CONTENT
JOE HORN’S LAWN SERVICE (PARAGOULD, AR)
by x-pert on Nov 20, 2009 10:05 AM EST reply actions
to hell with the KKK and NAACP, no one needs those racist groups. Leave the song alone, if you don’t like it, you have the freedom not to sing it or go to that university, there is nothing racist about it. It is just an assualt on southern tradition.
by DannyHerron on Nov 20, 2009 3:36 PM EST reply actions
This whole article is just an slam Ole Miss piece.Ole Miss is no more founded in racism than any other school started in the mis 1800s. Why is George Wallace never mentioned, as in U. of Alabama? Colonel Reb is based on Blind Jim, a Black man. Why is "rebels" racist, and "fighting tigers and crimson tide" not? Have there never been racial issues anywhere else, or did I just imagine the problems in Little Rock, Selma, Montgomery, Bosto, etc? Give it a rest. I spit on the KKK, they are a joke.
by TRJNREB on Nov 20, 2009 3:51 PM EST reply actions
What I want to know, what’s the KKK’s won-loss record this year? ;o))
by GSMS on Nov 21, 2009 12:03 AM EST reply actions
I think it is hilarious to read how people from areas other than the south try to stereotype that this is how it is. My class did a marketing research plan on minorities living in the south that lived elsewhere, and 84% stated that the white population was more hospitable and sincere than where they previously lived (east coast, west coast, north).
This south is probably the most successful part of the country in today’s world. Most of the southern states have done good throughout this horrible economy compared to everywhere else in the nation, it has the best college football, the cheapest cost of living. It has great businesses, corporations, and agricultural opportunities, and much more. The media just posted this story to try and make the south look like the image it had in the 50s and 60s. Probably the most irrelevent sports story I have seen in a long time!
by ArkHog87 on Nov 21, 2009 12:37 AM EST reply actions
Just to keep things Mississippi, blacks will be sprayed with a high-pressure fire hose as they leave the stadium.
by L'etat, c'est moi on Nov 21, 2009 9:02 AM EST reply actions
I thought America was the land of the FREE. As much as everyone dislikes the song, MANY soldiers have faught and died for the right to say what we like. DONT FORGET THIS AMERICANS!!!
by wcross on Nov 21, 2009 9:44 AM EST reply actions
I find it hartd to believe that, should i go up to someone dying of a gut-shot in Afghanistan, he’s going to be like "Well.. this hurts a lot… but at least Ole Miss won’t have their fight song stolen by the Taliban."
by L'etat, c'est moi on Nov 21, 2009 10:03 AM EST reply actions
Wow, a whole dozen.
Such a massive showing of hate. How does Ole Miss ever recover?
Thankfully, we have the media to gin up the appropriate amount of outrage
.
I think that it says far more about American that you can only find a dozen middle-aged losers for this sort of crap in Mississippi today.
by RamblinWreck007 on Nov 21, 2009 3:37 PM EST reply actions
Perhaps chancellor Jones should recruit the "new" black panthers from
Philadelphia who were intimidating voters with clubs outside a polling station during the elections last November.
They could work as security for the university.
They will be available until the 2010 elections now that attorney general Eric Holder has dropped the investigation after reviewing the "inconclusive" video evidence and witness testimony.
I guess the AG has other things on his agenda, like getting ready to bring K.S.M. to Broadway for a civil trial in an encore performance of 9/11.
Question; You know what all this political correctness crap will get you?
Answer; 13 dead American Patriots in Fort Hood, Texas.
Wake up America!
Our world no longer revolves around what does and doesn’t offend a certain group of "citizens".
Regards, Deo Vindice
by 4DeoVindice on Nov 21, 2009 6:20 PM EST reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed