12/21/24
October 28, 2009
Ole Miss Discourages 'South Will Rise Again' Cheer: The University of Mississippi has shortened one of its fight songs to discourage students from yelling "the South will rise again" at the end of it, a move that has inspired students to -- wait for it -- yell "the South will rise again" at the end of the shortened song. The school got rid of mascot Colonel Rebel six years ago and forbade the waving of the Confederate battle flag to distance itself from its past -- which includes the terrible 1962 riots over the admission of its first black student as well as the laudable election of a black football player to the team's highest honor seven years later. The shortened fight song, "From Dixie with Love," is a reconciliatory mixture of "Dixie" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Does this kind of go along with the Washington Racists thing? What about this type of tradition can students and faculty be proud of?
posted by THX-1138 at 02:18 PM on October 28, 2009
I guess they can stop the cheer, but I don't think it really makes much difference.
I dunno about recruiting, but I think the presence of "old south" definitely makes a difference for incoming minority students. I attended UGA 2001-2005, and one of the major issues was the lack of minorities (specifically, African-Americans). The main argument's the majority of our campus are Atlanta natives with a huge black population, yet at the time I attended UGA, they made up only a few percent of the population. One can argue about the Atlanta school systems all they want and how inter-city schools offer an inferior education, but my theory was that if I were a minority, all I'd have to do is walk down fraternity row to see the frat houses (I think there were 15-20 on one street) proudly waving the confederate flag. I could choose to go to a school where people obviously still don't exactly hold minorities in the highest light, or choose to go to great predominantly black colleges in Atlanta. Not a hard choice, imho.
posted by jmd82 at 03:14 PM on October 28, 2009
I dunno about recruiting, but I think the presence of "old south" definitely makes a difference for incoming minority students.
I agree. And, there student body reflects that. The state of Mississippi has a large black population (37%), the percentage of minorities of all types in the student body at Ole Miss is only 19%. They aren't going to get rid of the monuments, the cemeteries, and all the rest. It is still an unwelcoming environment with or without the chant.
posted by bperk at 03:27 PM on October 28, 2009
Maybe this is just because I'm a Minnesotan, but given the hotbed of political correctness that most college campuses are these days, you'd think the student body would demand correcting that already. (This is one of the rare cases where I actually agree with the PC crowd.)
posted by TheQatarian at 04:24 PM on October 28, 2009
Maybe this is just because I'm a Minnesotan, but given the hotbed of political correctness that most college campuses are these days, you'd think the student body would demand correcting that already. (This is one of the rare cases where I actually agree with the PC crowd.)
After graduating from UGA, I've lived in Minnesota the last couple years, and yea, it's different up here. In Georgia, everything seemed to center around race. At UGA, there were some students who wanted chang, but by and large, most people liked it just the way it is, Confederate flags and all. It's also worth noting that a lot of alumni money comes from the "good ole' boy network," who don't always tend to be the progressive types. If anything, most the pressure to change come from the administration to make the school look forward thinking and not backwards, kinda like what Ole Miss's doing.
posted by jmd82 at 06:41 PM on October 28, 2009
They aren't going to get rid of the monuments, the cemeteries, and all the rest.
ehhhh, I can see them having a cemetery or a monument without them necessarily being racist, as long as they're treated as part of the past. I went to UVa, coming from a state not in the South. UVa has a large monument in their cemetery to students who were in the confederate army mixed in with the graves of early professors and their families. I found it more intriguing that a university had a cemetery at all than I was concerned about there being a confederate monument - I actually kind of expected some sort of monument (what that says about my prejudices towards the South is another matter). But it wasn't any big deal. It's not like they changed the robes on it like some statue of Buddha or something - it just sat there and no one paid any attention to it.
posted by LionIndex at 12:43 AM on October 29, 2009
A problem is that in a college setting not only do you have to overcome Southern tradition but also college tradition (and the ignorance and rebellion of youth). When I was at the University of South Alabama the confederate flag was much more prevalent on campus (by far) than anywhere else outside of campus.
After graduating from UGA, I've lived in Minnesota the last couple years, and yea, it's different up here. In Georgia, everything seemed to center around race.
Given that Minnesota isn't in the South (therefore lacks its history) and has an African-American population of 4.6 compared to the national average of 12.8 (Georgia 30 percent) I'm not sure exactly what that proves.
What to do in case of a blizzard isn't a hot topic in Hawaii either.
posted by justgary at 12:38 PM on October 30, 2009
Ole Miss has a confederate monument in the middle of campus. They stopped waving rebel flags in 1997 because Tubervile thought it hurt recruiting. I guess they can stop the cheer, but I don't think it really makes much difference.