#541. The University of Mississippi Traditions

(Play this song, while you read this entry)

It wasn't that long ago that Heisman Trophy winning (white guy) running back Paul Hornung had this to say about his alma mater Notre Dame and Black people:

"In 1963, at the height of his career as the Green Bay Packers' Golden Boy, Hornung was suspended by the National Football League for gambling on pro football games.

Forty years later, Hornung has suffered another lapse of judgment that can cost his alma mater, Notre Dame, dearly.

During a radio interview in Detroit on Tuesday night, Hornung, frustrated by a losing season at Notre Dame, said that the university needed to lower its academic standards so more black athletes could play there."

Black people might get upset with this comment, since it relies on the usage of Hate Facts, but it doesn't make what Hornung said any less true:

"Paul Hornung knows that Notre Dame has a lot of black players, but he also knows that his alma mater has limited itself to taking black players whose academic records predict an ability to do Notre Dame work. Notre Dame work is a lot tougher than Miami work. According to the average SAT scores of players -- black and white -- Miami is recruiting players -- black and white -- who are below average students. Notre Dame is recruiting black players who are better than average students. Hornung would like to see Notre Dame be a little less picky because he knows that would result in better players -- black and white -- and more wins."

At the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss here on out), another politically incorrect truth haunts the campus like Scrooge's three ghosts and this phantom isn't likely to leave anytime soon: the school's Southern roots:

"In a day when Southerners denigrate their heritage, try to lose their Southern accent, and act embarrassed at our customs, I was proud to see that some semblance of Southern heritage still remains on the campus of Ole Miss.

No question, the political correctness gestapo has done their damage at the University, but I was still touched to see the Confederate monument at the center of campus. The sports programs still calls themselves the Ole Miss Rebels, as seen in the accompanying photo of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. And the band still plays the old Southern favorite, Dixie."

Before we move forward, it is important to remember the ultimate tool that was used to integrate Black people into the United States is sports. Were it not for college football, Black people would have few outlets for chances of impressing the public in America, as the only time they would appear on television would be in nightly newscasts.

Ole Miss is a school in Mississippi - a state that still proudly flies the Confederate flag - that is more than 80 percent white. Located in Oxford, a town that is more than 75 percent white, Ole Miss is the epitome of the Southern school. Nowhere on earth does a school exist that exudes the charm, pageantry, glory and tradition as does Ole Miss (well, maybe Morehouse).

Take for instance The Grove, one of the few places on earth that has a direct line to God, where on fall Saturday's the most beautiful girls on the planet (outside of these girls) gather with under-graduates, alumni and family to celebrate the glory of the South, Ole Miss football and, well, life:

"But in Oxford lies, as promised, the most magical place on all of God's green, football-playing Earth: the Grove. A school of red and white and blue tents swimming in a shaded 10-acre forest of oak trees, floating in an ocean of good will and even better manners.

I didn't know the rules at the Grove, rules like: "Don't bother showing up before 4 a.m." Sure, space is at a premium, but for a 6 p.m. game against Memphis? Who would? Apparently everyone, when you consider the masses who actually do arrive promptly at four."

The problem with this paradise isn't the charm, nor the abundance of beautiful people, but the past, which is very much alive at Ole Miss, despite every effort to destroy it by administrators, past football coaches and the politically correct, in an effort to make the campus more palatable to Black people:

"(Former)Head football coach Tommy Tuberville has asked to abandon the Confederate flag for different reasons. He says that the flag-waving makes it difficult for him to recruit African American and white players.

He and others are afraid that the presence of the flag makes for the appearance of a racist environment to outsiders, one that football recruits might prefer to avoid. In the game after his appeal to stop the waving of the flags, confederate flags appeared in the stand with the same frequency as they had the week before."

You see, Ole Miss can't compete in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) without Black people running the football. We at SBPDL aren't sure why white people wouldn't go to Ole Miss because of the flag, for almost 85 percent of the student body is white and they don't seem to mind the flag nor the South.

In a hilarious book, Meat Market, that details the complete collapse of America and why the Chinese and Russians will one day own all of America, a writer followed around a former Ole Miss coach as he tried to recruit Black people to come to Ole Miss on a budget of $800,000 (for recruiting), a school that has the most beautiful white girls on the planet:

"For all the big-time recruits lured to an SEC school like Ole Miss, there are knockout blonds giving them tours of campus in golf carts, coaches trying to decipher their sketchy academic transcripts and a constant battle against negative recruiting."

So, what has Ole Miss done to make the school more attractive to Black people (as opposed to the white girl, Nikole Churchill, who won Ms. Hampton at a Historically Black College and was attacked by Black people for not being Black)?

They have tried to ban waving the Confederate Flag. They have tried to ban the mascot, Colonel Reb:

"But no. The school mascot is a white-bearded old man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and leaning on a cane. His name is Colonel Reb and he looks like nothing less than the very caricature of an old, white plantation owner. He's offensive and the school wants to get rid of him. Saying the figure is outdated and that it wants a more dynamic image, the administration has already banished Colonel Reb from sporting events and is in the process of choosing a replacement."

Now, they are trying to destroy every last vestige of tradition that made Ole Miss the school of Archie and Eli Manning (should have been Peyton Manning's alma mater too), by getting rid of another tradition:

"The University of Mississippi has shortened one of its fight songs to discourage football fans from chanting "the South will rise again" during part of the tune, which critics say is an offensive reminder of the region's intolerant past.

However, some fans have continued to recite the chant at the end of the song, "From Dixie With Love," despite the change made last week at the chancellor's request. The Ole Miss band performs the medley before and after games."

Sophomore Cortez Moss, director of communications for the ASB, said the organization is trying to explain to students why the phrase is offensive.

"You take back on that slave mentality," said Moss, who is black. "I know the South won't rise again and the South can't rise again."

SBPDL doesn't believe the South will rise again, for that is a quixotic venture in fantasy. However, traditions are important, and if Black people find Ole Miss so reprehensible, they should just refuse to go to Ole Miss and deny that school their presence.

Would the football suffer? Look at the Air Force Academy and Brigham Young University on the football field as evidence of how a team full of whites can compete against nearly all-white schools that field nearly all-Black teams (as Ole Miss routinely operates).

The attempted destruction of Ole Miss and her traditions is but a microcosm of the problems that continue to unfold in America and drive home the macro point of view: Black people can get nearly anything they want in America, if they just protest loud enough and long enough.

There is a corollary to this point that must be stated, for it sits in the back of all right thinking Black peoples minds: the South might not rise again, but the day will come, inevitably, when Disingenuous White Liberals and Crusading White Pedagogues no longer have any power in America. What happens then?

Ole Miss is led by these type of people, as is the entire United States for the most part (Mein Obama is 1/2 DWL, thanks to his mom). College football - SBPDL does enjoy the sport - is the only sport that matters in America and having Black people to play at nearly all-white schools, is all that matters, even if they can't read at levels above the second grade. And at Ole Miss, every brick of the past must be removed so that Black people won't be offended and will play football there.

Stuff Black People Don't Like happily introduces The University of Mississippi traditions into the mix, for all white institutions and traditions must be extirpated in the America we currently live in, for listening to Dixie and shouting "The South Will Rise Again" might scare off the pre-requisite Black players necessary to field a competent team in college football. And yet, a quick glance at the 2009 Rebels shows a football squad with an abundance of Black players, despite the purported evil playing of Dixie that drives them away from Oxford.

Hornung said that Notre Dame needs to lower their academic standards - perhaps to Florida State's level? - to have a chance to compete in college football. Ole Miss must remove all images that are heresy to the new regime in charge of America, or feel the wrath of a campus and football team without Black people.

More importantly, white people joining in singing in unison and understanding they have a unique past that binds them together - its called Pre-Obama America - might be all it takes to rekindle pride and finally throw off the shackles of politically correctness for all eternity.

After all, the Estonians proved all a revolution takes is a little signing...