This is currently a football phenomenon, but we can expect it to spill into the basketball season so I thought I’d drop a line about it here. Apparently the student body of Ole Miss has decided that it is stunningly clever to append “the South will rise again” to the end of a gameday chant.
The part that gets me is the reaction of the administration as mentioned in the article: “Chancellor worries perception of university will be damaged.”
Yes, it would be damaging if someone were to inappropriately associate the University of Mississippi with a backward longing for the Confederacy. It’s not like their teams are named the REBELS or anything. This is the University mascot. They call it “Colonel Reb” and march it around the stadium like a Disney character. For that matter, this is the flag of the state running this fine institution.
I don’t approve of the new chant, but I would like to appeal to the administration to take a moment and consider that this chant may be the least of the University’s concerns if the goal is to promote the image of an institution that’s moved past 1865. Or as the Ole Miss History Department probably calls it, the “War of Northern Aggression.”
