Music | November 19, 2009 | 14 comments

From Dixie, With Love

source: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/doyle_from_dixie_with_love_111109/

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jcamille
by: Bryan Doyle-

"As a University of Mississippi graduate excited about the progress of his alma mater in the past decade, a strong distaste for the likes of Richard Barrett is interwoven into my DNA.

For the many of you who have no idea who I'm talking about, Mr. Barrett—who for the remainder of this article we will refer to simply as "Dicky"—is an old, crotchety Learned, Miss.-based white supremacist...

...Our school is at risk of losing "From Dixie with Love" because a fringe group of students and alumni use the last five notes to scream "The South Will Rise Again," a phrase racist in most contexts and ignorant in all the rest..."

...The Associated Student Body Senate, with good reason, has publicly asked for the chants to stop. Chancellor Dan Jones, just four months into his new job, is backing up the students, and has threatened to cease playing the song if the chants don't stop. The testing ground was Saturday's North Arizona game. I couldn't hear anything when watching the game on television, but friends of mine who attended the game did hear some saying it.

Now, "From Dixie with Love" is only a song, and the sun will still rise over the hills of north Mississippi if it's never played at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium again. But it is a mistake to give this fringe group power by removing it. Instead of expending all this energy devising ways to shame the chanters into submission, we should instead consider why they use the language in the first place, and come up with reasonable ways to discourage the act.

We should launch an education initiative to treat the cause and not the symptoms.

It's true: Some of the chanters are just troublemakers and immune to all reason -- the Richard Barretts; the Elmer Fudds -- but most are rational people who simply don't know any better. My good friend Roun McNeal, former Associated Student Body President, used to join in years ago, and recently related to the Associated Press why he stopped.

"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," he said.
(Continued)

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/doyle_from_dixie_with_lo...
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14 comments // From Dixie, With Love

  • JohnA
    • 0
      JohnA  

    • It's a song, it's just a song. Elvis sang that song. Whatever meaning you are applying to it is in your head. The only diviseness is comparing college students to the KKK. This is the kind of PC bullshit that caused 13 serviceman to be lying in their graves at Fort Hood, we can't do ANYTHING because one person somewhere somehow might possibly not like it.

    • 2 years ago
  • PompanoMinded
  • donnyin3d
  • mopo
    • 0
      mopo  

    • A sample of 'Dixie' is used in a song called 'Smells Like Kevin Bacon' by Iwrestledabearonce, my friends listen to this band, but I just don't get it.... at all.

    • 2 years ago
  • jesuswho
  • JohnA
    • 0
      JohnA  

    • Had to dig through the archives to find that picture, didn't you. They outlawed waving the flag ten years ago. Then they outlawed Colonel Rebel, we're the only team in NCAA Division 1A football who doesn't have an on field mascot. Now this excuse to stop playing Dixie from the new Chancellor. Some people won't be happy until we're the Mississippi Tigers wearing green and gold uniforms. There is no pleasing them, there is nothing possible you could do to satisfy them. If they closed the school, tore it down, and made all the graduates turn in their diplomas, some people would still not be happy.

    • 2 years ago
  • jcamille
    • 0
      jcamille  
    • JohnA:

      The picture is to illustrate the attitude.

      I like Ole Miss, it's my alma mater. No need to change the colors, tear it down, or force the return of diploma's. It's a good school other than the occasional blatant racism. Of course not everyone who wants to keep "From Dixie with Love" and Colonel Reb is racist, a lot are just ignorant. But, I'm really glad some people were stupid enough to start screaming "the south shall rise again" so we can, maybe, finally get rid of that song. The song and the old mascot are disrespectful and represent exclusion and hatred to a lot of people.

      Sure it's a tradition. In some countries sexual mutilation of children is a tradition (female circumcision). Just because it's tradition does not mean it should continue.

      Hotty Toddy.

    • 2 years ago
  • JohnA
  • jcamille
    • 0
      jcamille  
    • JohnA:

      I don't think they should change everything, just the rascist shit

      Ole Miss is more than its old mascot and that one racist song that should have been gotten rid of a long long time ago. It is a great school with a lot of great people, educational opportunities, teachers, etc. and has made more social progress than most institutions.

      The only thing holding it back from being one of the best schools in the nation, are the racist traditions and the racists, the racist dumb asses, and the regular dumb asses trying to hold onto those traditions.

    • 2 years ago
  • JohnA
    • 0
      JohnA  
    • JohnA:

      So how does very publically embarrassing and putting the school in a negative light on the national news accomplish that? How does making every Ole Miss graduate all over the world out to be a fool and a buffon help in any way? Now I read the KKK will be attending our nationally televised SEC game of the week against LSU. How can that in any way be construed as a positive result? Is that really what we want, is this better somehow? How are we going to move past anything like that? However well intentioned his motives, if the Chancellor is so shortsided that he believes a few rowdies at a football game is worth the national reputation and integrity of the University, perhaps just maybe he doesn't have the judgement required to be Chancellor.

    • 2 years ago
  • jcamille
    • 0
      jcamille  
    • JohnA:

      Racism is still lingering at Ole Miss. It needs to be dealt with. Problems should not be hidden, they should be fixed. This needs to be addressed. Perhaps all the bad attention can help those holding onto these traditions wake up and more closely examine their beloved traditions.

    • 2 years ago
  • JohnA
    • 0
      JohnA  
    • JohnA:

      Racism lingers everywhere in America. Yes, in the north too. No reason to make Ole Miss a scapegoat for what is happening all over the country. Traditions are not neccesarily a bad thing. I still think any racial connotations are in your head, not in mine, I don't see them that way, I'm not a racist. Thanks for changing the picture though.

    • 2 years ago
  • jcamille
  • passjay
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