Stay classy, Mississippi

Or “Go fuck yourself, Itawamba County”

We don’t usually get too deep in this blog. We like what we like–tv, movies, books, and music–and neither of us are experts on, well, anything. But this really angers me. kegger and I are from Mississippi. We are die-hard Southern girls who love being Southern. We love the food; we love the people; we love the atmosphere–most of the time. Right now, I have to say that I’m embarrassed to call this state my home. I’m saddened and angered at the adults in Itawamba County who think it’s okay for their children to discriminate against anyone who is different. I’m furious at the parents, teachers, and administrators who thought setting up a fake prom would take care of the problem. This is not the lesson we should be teaching our kids. “You don’t like someone because of a superficial difference? That’s fine. Just set up a fake (insert function here) and don’t tell the people  you don’t like. They’ll never know! It’s a win-win situation. You don’t have to hang out with the seedy underbelly of American society, and they feel like they were included!”

No. No, no, a thousand times no.

I don’t care what you think of homosexuality. I don’t care, and I don’t want to know. This is not that blog post. Whatever you think of gays and lesbians–of black people or Mexicans, of Muslims or Christians, of Democrats or Republicans–it is never okay to discriminate against someone because of his or her differences. I am disappointed in those leaders in Itawamba who, through their lack of courage, fear of the unknown, self-righteous indignation and lack of caring, showed those high schoolers that distancing themselves from people who are different–who hold different beliefs, worship different gods, wear different clothes, speak a different language, or love different people–is acceptable. It isn’t. We can’t grow as individuals and as a society if we keep to ourselves. We’ll never learn tolerance or love if we hide from others or force them to hide from us.

I love you, Mississippi. I do. You are a crazy place full of fist-sized mosquitoes, sweltering summers, and right now more pollen than I’ve ever seen in my life. But if you keep this shit up, if you keep showing the world that we are nothing but self-centered, backwards, close-minded, arrogant assholes, we’re going to have to see other people. I hear Canada’s nice this time of year.

I hope you’re proud of yourself, people in Itawamba County. Right now, I don’t even want to call Mississippi my home.

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From Dixie, with love

I woke up this morning to this lovely little ESPN article.

I’ll give you a little back story.  amelie and I live in Mississippi.  We’re Southern girls.  We went to college at Ole Miss, and we’re very proud of that.  We like our little town, we like being Southern, and no, we’re not racist.  Not even a little bit.

But living in the South has its drawbacks.  People walk on tip toes when it comes to anything related to race.  We don’t want to offend people.  And Ole Miss, particularly, has a bad history when it comes to race relations, so the administration tends to tread even more carefully than everyone else.

Before, during, and after every football game, the Ole Miss Band (“The Pride of the South”) plays From Dixie with Love, which gets all the students pumped up.  A few years ago–I’m not even sure who started it or why–at the every end of the song, drunken college students started chanting, “The South will rise again!”

Okay.  I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, I can honestly say that I don’t think ANYONE who yells that is saying in any way that they’d like black people to be slaves again.  I don’t think ANYONE means it that way.  The way I take it is, one day the South isn’t going to be the armpit of the United States.  One day, we’re going to be awesome [amelie: It already is, but it’s a well-kept secret. Shh. Don’t tell.] One day, people will acknowledge that the SEC has the best football teams [amelie: Word].  That the people in the South are really nice and not uneducated rednecks. [amelie: More specifically, uneducated rednecks live everywhere, not just the South.] One day, we’ll have salaries that compare with the rest of the country.  One day, people won’t think of a Southern accent as a bad thing. [amelie: One day, Hollywood will learn that Louisiana accents ARE NOT THE SAME as Mississippi accents, which aren’t the same as Georgia accents, and that Texas is West not South.] One day, the South will be equal to the rest of the United States.

It’s a nice dream, right?  I think so.  Probably won’t happen any time soon (if ever) but there’s nothing wrong with dreaming.

Having said that, I can see why people are offended.  I don’t really care whether people say it or not.  I’m kind of neutral on the whole thing.  Mostly because I’m not very politically correct and I think it’s stupid to TRY to be politically correct, because you’re ALWAYS going to offend someone.  But I can see why people don’t like it, and I can completely understand why people are trying to stop others from saying it.

(But why is replacing “The South will rise again” with “To Hell with LSU!” any better?  Couldn’t that be considered hateful, too? [amelie: Hell fucking no. What kind of Rebel fan are you?!]) [kegger:  I’m just sayin’.  You’re wishing someone to go to hell.  Which, yeah, I know we say that EVERY FREAKING game, but still.  Can’t they both be considered hateful?  Yes.  They can.] [amelie: IT’S ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. Also: WTF–“To Hell with LSU?” Ew. Why not stick with the less-retarded, more action-packed “Go to Hell, LSU?”][kegger: Because apparently it doesn’t fit and flow with the chant.  Even though it has the freaking EXACT same amount of syllables.]

Anyway.  I can understand why the University is trying to stop that chant.  But you’d REALLY think that they’d realize by now that if you ask the students not to do something like that (remember the flag debacle?  Or when they tried to get rid of Colonel Reb?) it’s just going to piss them off and they’re going to do it even more?

A lot of people didn’t even really know about the chant.  You could really only hear it from the student section.  So bringing it to attention (in the student newspaper, and in the Tupelo paper) just made it worse.  Now, once again, we’re in the national news because we’re supposedly racist.  And once again, people think we’re uneducated rednecks.

In reality, it probably would have gone away on it’s own (students had already started a whole grassroots movement thing to replace it with “To hell with LSU”–and it was working) [amelie: GO TO HELL LSU OH MY GOD. I will not chant “To hell with LSU.” GROSS.] if people had just let it go.  Now?  It’s probably here to say just because they pissed people off.

Good job, university officials!  Thanks for bringing it to everyone’s attention and making it worse!

Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way.  But I’m just so sick of only ever hearing negative things about Ole Miss.  There’s a lot of great things going on there, but you never get to hear about them.  Instead, you only hear about the occasional controversy.

Maybe one day we’ll get away from our past, but either way, we all know that it will be a VERY long time before the South rises again–if we ever do. [amelie: because, let’s face it, in this economy, we’re all poor.  If there are two things America needs right now, it’s sunshine and optimism. Also angels. Or hot guys in leather jackets.]

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