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Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:10 pm EST

'Dixie' won't rise again at Ole Miss any time soon

By Matt Hinton

Cooler, more mature heads at Ole Miss warned students last month to knock off the superfluous "South will rise again!" cheer at the end of one of its traditional anthems, "To Dixie With Love." They insisted to national outlets that the chant was "not part of [the] tradition and spirit" of Ole Miss. They got one of the school's most visible alums to persuade the kids to put a cork in it. Bless their hearts, they tried to be patient about it.

But the chant came out again Saturday in the Rebels' win over Northern Arizona last Saturday, and that will be the end of "From Dixie With Love":

Because some fans continued chanting "The South will rise again!" at the end of the song despite requests to refrain from doing so, Chancellor Dan Jones has asked the school band to discontinue playing the song.
[...]
"Here at the University of Mississippi, there must be no doubt that this is a warm and welcoming place for all," Jones wrote in a letter to the Ole Miss community. "We cannot even appear to support those outside our community who advocate a revival of segregation. We cannot fail to respond."

Jones said he would consider lifting the ban "if the chant stops and our elected student leaders ask for the song to return."

Note that this is not the Ole Miss fight song, which is "Forward Rebels" ("Rebels you're the Southland's pride / Take that ball and hit your stride. ...") and isn't going anywhere. The old Confederate iconography, though, is dying a very slow, painful death, with plenty of people working hard to resuscitate it. Before "From Dixie With Love," there was the white-bearded, cane-wielding mascot, Colonel Reb, which was banned from the sidelines for obvious reasons in 2003 but continues to wander the Grove in an unofficial capacity, and the omnipresent Confederate flag itself, officially banned from games more than a decade ago but still a favorite of Rebel paraphernalia (not to mention the many upstanding truck bumpers of my native state, and of course the state flag). I've never ceased to be amazed by how doggedly the doomed defenders of the old guard rally to ward off the Marxist liberals bent on imposing the most mundane realities of contemporary decency. (I'm defining "contemporary" loosely, of course, to include roughly the last 30 years.)

At least there are actual, politically aware grown-ups in charge of things now who realize what century they're in, and they get to win this one. Sorry, kids, but with any luck, your apparent taste for racially charged postbellum nostalgia will wane as you get older.

- - -
Hat tip: Deadspin

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71 Comments

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  1. evolution6679
    1. Posted by evolution6679 Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:40 pm EST

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    Oh, enough with the PC crap. Do you really think the students were calling for another Confederate uprising? Or just yelling out a term that sounds cool to them? Give me a break. I hope someone brings in a recording of it next time.
  2. Tim
    2. Posted by Tim Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:47 pm EST

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    LOL a feisty college kid fight song == bring back segregation LOL!!!!!1111
    And Jesus Christ, Matt, you whine as if political correctness doesn't always win. Lighten up.
  3. Mat
    3. Posted by Mat Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:59 pm EST

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    South didn't rise too well the first time. Might be in your best interest to keep taking in those Union tax dollars and find an honorable part of your past to remember.
  4. Mike
    4. Posted by Mike Wed Nov 11, 2009 5:03 pm EST

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    "I've never ceased to be amazed by how doggedly the doomed defenders of the old guard rally to ward off the Marxist liberals bent on imposing the most mundane realities of contemporary decency. (I'm defining "contemporary" loosely, of course, to include roughly the last 30 years.)"
    A-fonking-men to that. So true and so damn sad.
  5. Nobody In Particular
    5. Posted by Nobody In Particular Wed Nov 11, 2009 5:10 pm EST

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    Let the students have fun before they have to put up with all the nonsense of life. If you don't like it, don't participate. You can't please ALL people - at any time. If tradition is all they have to hold on to, I say hold on - stay the course and FIGHT for it. Don't let anyone take away your tradition.
  6. TheTruth
    6. Posted by TheTruth Wed Nov 11, 2009 5:41 pm EST

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    I'm sick and tired of the PC police telling us what we can and can't say. So what if these kids want to express pride in their white Southern heritage? I don't hear you liberals complaining when the blacks and latinos talk about being proud of their heritage. It's just a double standard. Who cares what happened in the past? None of the people complaining about this were around at the time of the Civil War. What do they care?
  7. Jerkwheat
    7. Posted by Jerkwheat Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:28 pm EST

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    States rights!!!
  8. Fakin
    8. Posted by Fakin Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:35 pm EST

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    they dont even sing it at the right tempo. dixie's supposed to be a quick, lively marching tune, not a slow dragging piece sung off key and not on time by thousands of drunk rednecks. miss is the bad part of the south, the rest of us are doing just fine
  9. The Ghost of Jay Cutler
    9. Posted by The Ghost of Jay Cutler Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:58 pm EST

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    If any of you are students at Ole Miss, just drop out and transfer to Northwest CC or something. Please. The value of my degree is struggling as it is and I don't need your idiocy muddling it up.
  10. Joseph B
    10. Posted by Joseph B Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:18 pm EST

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    This is a part of Ole Miss tradition. Give it a Break it is not ment to be slanderous. How about some radicals Polititions Death to America those are the real villians they are in OUR White House, The Kids at Ole Miss are having Fun and Fun only!
  11. K
    11. Posted by K Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:20 pm EST

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    Indeed Matt, you whine as if political correctness loses most of the time. It always wins. There was nothing wrong with what the students said at the end of that song. It is, after all the south. The last half of that song is about the union sledgehammer that fell upon the south, and imposed a brutal reconstruction. Hell they won't even play all of Dixie.
    Whine, cry and moan all you want, but there will still be people who understands these truths and who have no ill will toward black folk. Give it a rest man...
  12. Joseph B
    12. Posted by Joseph B Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:20 pm EST

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    Give them a break College students having fun. If there was any other way I say yes you people are really the jerks complaining about students having fun either leave the stadium or don't even go.
  13. Nathan
    13. Posted by Nathan Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:31 pm EST

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    In response to "the truth": This is not an issue of right and left this is an issue of right and wrong. I believe that students at Ole Miss or anyplace else in the country can be proud of their heritage without being as needlessly provacative as the students at Ole Miss were being. Your characterization of this as being a double standard in which one code of behavior is acceptable for white students while a different one applies to African-Americans and Latinos just underscores how far off the mark you are. Ole Miss, like any other university, is an institution that attracts a disparate array of individuals who come from different races, religions, regions of the country, or background. The goal of that institution is to instill in its members a sense of community that everybody who is affiliated with that school can be proud of. Having clubs on campus that focus on Latino, African, German, or whatever heritage is not incompatible with that goal; the administration sitting by quietly while students invoke rhetoric from a painful period in American history is. This "let the kids be kids" argument is nonsense as well. Ole Miss has long been regarded as an academic institution which attracts students from the "old money" families in the south. Whether that is a fair assesment or not, standing by while students create on that campus an atmosphere that is completely detached from the norms of our society is not going to do those students any favors in the long-run. The university should be a place that promotes knowledge and understanding, not a place where people shelter themselves from the realities of the world for a few years.
  14. Kip
    14. Posted by Kip Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:47 pm EST

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    This is just another example of so called political correctness going over board.
  15. ROBERT G
    15. Posted by ROBERT G Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:47 pm EST

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    with slive and his crew gone before next season begins, dixie may be playing again much sooner than anyone can imagine.
  16. GregoryH
    16. Posted by GregoryH Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:52 pm EST

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    Wow,
    Ignorant Rednecks making Ole Miss and the SEC look stupid again!
    But then Miss is and always will be last in education and almost everthing else as well so who really cares.
  17. Jacob
    17. Posted by Jacob Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:39 pm EST

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    I'm sure the South will in fact rise again. Once they get all the crap off their lawn. And get that Camaro runnin' ag'in. And save up some money for the cost of it. Sure!
  18. Matt M
    18. Posted by Matt M Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:03 pm EST

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    this topic is not even worth talking about. it's a song. get over it, let em sing. their are more imporant things to worry about.
  19. Phocion
    19. Posted by Phocion Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:10 pm EST

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    Congrats to the PC Police for another victory.
    Keep in mind, rumor is that LSU is nicknamed the Tigers to commemorate a Confederate regiment. And what's with that "Chinese Bandit" song...sounds awfully racist to me!
  20. Steve P
    20. Posted by Steve P Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:44 pm EST

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    This just goes to show that the only people that ever get offended are people who want to be offended.
  21. MarcusC
    21. Posted by MarcusC Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:49 pm EST

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    Their team name is the "Runnin' Rebels"! How can a team so named be told that their fans can't say "The South will rise again!"??? Should they change their name to the "Shameful Secessionists"? Would that please everyone and make it safe for black students to attend again? I hate the SEC, btw, Go Bucks! O-H-I-O!
  22. playa4life
    22. Posted by playa4life Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:29 am EST

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    Has anybody ever noticed that it's supposedly ok to downgrade a whole group of people? That's it's cool and funny to joke about this group not owning, let alone wearing, shoes? That members of this group supposedly mate with those they are closely related to... and that this "fact" is often a source of humor and not disputed? Is it funny that all of the members of this group are not very well educated?
    I'm talking about open and accepted bigotry against those from the South.
    Of course it's not right. But what's weird is that this kind of negative prejudicial mischaracterization is not even recognized as occuring, nor are Southerners being given oppressed minority status. I've never heard it discussed in any kind of serious way in any major newspapers or on any national tv or radio shows that such blatant "hate speech disguised as humor" against those from the South is just that: hate speech.
    Really? It's funny that those people from over dare down thataway do it with their close relatives? That's funny?
    Time to start misunderstanding and misrepresenting me begins.... now.
  23. elliottkevin77
    23. Posted by elliottkevin77 Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:32 am EST

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    THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!!!!!!!! Yall get the hell over it. They may be able to make the band stop playing DIXIE but I'll be whistling DIXIE for many more years!!!!!
  24. True Football Fan
    24. Posted by True Football Fan Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:54 am EST

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    THIS IS 2009 FOLKS-lets talk football and not politics-PLEASE.

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