Note:  KWN, feel free to move this below the open election day thread if need be

It seems that some ghosts of Mississippi keep rearing their ugly head.  From the Associated Press:

Ole Miss Tries To Stop ‘Dixie’ Chant

 

OXFORD, Miss. — University of Mississippi football fans who refuse to stop chanting “the South will rise again” are on the verge of losing one of their favorite fight songs, the school’s chancellor said Monday. Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones said “From Dixie With Love” will no longer be played at games if fans continue the racially offensive chant.

 Last month, Jones asked the band to abruptly end the tune to discourage the chant, but he says that didn’t solve the problem.

 Jones said fan reaction during Saturday’s game against Northern Arizona would decide the fate of the song, which blends the Confederate Army’s fight song, “Dixie,” with the Union Army’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It’s been played for the university’s band for about two decades.

 ”The University of Mississippi is a warm and welcoming place. So many have worked hard to make sure our image moves forward, and we don’t want anything to hurt that,” Jones said during a luncheon sponsored by the John C. Stennis Institute of Government and the Capitol Press Corps.

 ”If the chant continues, we will discontinue the music that’s associated with it,” he said.

 All of the university’s head coaches, including football coach Houston Nutt, have endorsed the effort to end the chant, said athletics director Pete Boone.

 ”The chant ‘the South will rise again’ reflects negatively not only on the university but also on the progress we have made in athletics over the past two decades,” Boone said in a recent statement. “We join the super majority of the Ole Miss family in calling for discontinuing the chant.”

 Jones said the words in the phrase are “harmful” because they’ve been used by integration opponents in the past. For years, the university has worked to rid itself of an Old South image that included the 1962 violent standoff over James Meredith’s admission as the university’s first black student.

 ”I think the vast majority of our students don’t understand the significance of this. I think most of the students who are participating in saying those words, don’t know how painful they are,” Jones said.

 The move to abolish the chant began in October when the Ole Miss student government association passed a resolution to change the phrase to “to hell with LSU.” The Faculty Senate later took a vote in support of the association and Jones.

 Ole Miss has worked to improve its image as a racially diverse environment for decades after the 1962 admission of James Meredith as the school’s first black student led to a deadly standoff.

 Geoffrey Yoste, 45, a former Ole Miss instructor and retired Army National Guard major, said he agreed the chant is divisive and should stop, but he believes the university has mishandled the situation.

 Yoste said Ole Miss officials should have held a convocation for freshmen to discuss what’s acceptable on campus, rather “trying to tell a bunch of 21-year-olds what they can’t do.”

 ”I would hate for the Ole Miss band to stop playing ‘From Dixie with Love.’ That would be a terrible tragedy. Even opposing teams that visit, they just think it’s something new and special,” Yoste said.

 

Having spent my entire life in the deep south, barely a day goes by when I don’t see a rebel flag bumper sticker, hear Charlie Daniels’ “The South’s Gonna Do It Again” on the radio, or walk into a gas station and find shot glasses for sale with Confederate flags on them- stating that “These Colors Don’t Run.”  On many occasions when I’ve come to a stop light, I look over to see who is driving the car with the bumper sticker on it, and more often than not, it is either a high school kid, or a stereotypical frat boy.  Having gone to high school in the south and then being initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity during my collegiate days, I have known many people from this region who succumb to this stereotype- and two words spring to my mind: “identity crisis.” 

When I was in high school, we all thought it was cool to have a rebel flag license plate, as though we thought of ourselves as Bert Reynolds, evading the cops in his infamous black Trans Am (though I could do without rescuing Sally Field).  When I got to college in the mid-nineties, I began to grow up and in that maturation process, I came to the realization that it wasn’t exactly cool to run around waving symbols of the old Confederacy.  I didn’t need a symbol so offensive to so many people to feel better about myself.  It might very well be heritage, and in fact, I am not embarrassed by my forefathers, most of whom fought for the Confederacy.  I have, on occasion, even defended their right to do so.  The Union army were no saints, and one of my 5x great grandfathers was murdered in cold blood by Union soldiers, which led to his son enlisting in the Confederacy.

That is a part of my heritage, but so are my two living grandfathers who are both well into their nineties.  Both of these men mean a lot more to who I am than just a faded picture in a box in a basement.  They have had so much more impact on my everyday life  than a historical footnote.  They also fought for their country, the United States of America, and I don’t need run around with an American Flag license plate on my car or bumper stickers with cute slogans on them…  because I don’t need it to find any sort of identity, or feel better about myself.   I’m southern, but above all, I’m an American, not a Confederate.    

High schools and frat houses aren’t the only places you’ll see  this “heritage” on display at a regular basis.  Many a southern town has their have’s and have nots.  Most of them also have their old money- the uppity class who sip their iced tea under their umbrellas, while sitting around on the patio at the golf club with their chums, talking in their half fake, psuedo old south accents.  I’m not talking about the genuine southern accent of a Fred Thompson, which is similar to the one I speak with.That is not the accent of a lifetime of wealth, nor the accent of birthright priviledge.  Hell, it’s quite difficult to understand if you’re not from the region.  I’m talking about accent where the long A is prounounced Ahhh-  and is used most prominently by elderly females in oversized pink hats or younger ones in visors and tennis skirts. 

While I don’t necessarily support adminstrative decisions banning anything, I hope that these students will one day realise that to a lot of people, it is a symbol of the murder of innocent people.  If the University of Mississippi wants to be the multiculture, multi-ethnic institution that it has indeed become, then the stereotypical symbolism must cease.  It is not the symbol of progress, but of Bull Conner, Byron De La Beckwith, and David Duke.  It is the symbol of blacks picking cotton and hanging from trees.   It’s heritage to them as well.  It’s a daily reminder that once upon a time and not that long ago, they would be refered to as “boy” rather than sir or ma’am, or that they would be directed towards the Colored sign if they needed to use the restroom.

Were kids of German descent stating “heritage not hatred” while proudly displaying the swastika on their license plates, many a person of Jewish faith would be rightly offended.  Why shouldn’t African-Americans feel the same way, and why shouldn’t we respect their feelings as well?   Chants of “the south will rise again” at football games is so ridiculously stupid that it should be common sense.  These Ole Miss students need to get over it.  It is heritage, but it’s also a symbol of hatred.