Racism Stirs Ole Miss Campus

Blog post

In February of 2014 Ole Miss University, located in Oxford Mississippi, founded an increase in racism abuse toward their historical monuments on campus and student body.  A statue of the schools first black student, James Meredith was founded to have a noose around his neck by two unidentified students as well as leaving a Confederate battle emblem behind.  The Daily Mississippian in an editorial response that reported that “these events continue to happen semester after semester and year after year…all of our actions seem fruitless and important, leaving us broken, scared, humiliated and with burning, difficult questions:  What we do we do about it? How do we stop these events from transpiring?” (NY times). 

            According to the New York Times, this University has had racism and discrimination stitched into their past like an old sweater. These stitches include past Jim Crow memories, the “aftermath of President Obama’s 2012 re-election resulting in the arrests of two students” and the production of “The Laramie Project” that resulted in audience members having an outbreak of homophobic comments and criticism.

The university’s assistant to the chancellor for multicultural affairs, David R. Cole, reported “There are some people who see this institution through the eyes of the ‘60s and forever will” (NY times).  Ole Miss has made much success in comparison to what type of community they used to be toward racism, but the University still has much more room to grow and evolve with the current normatives.  Even many students bring up the factors that “If the administration had exhausted its options, they argue that the student body needs to mount a more aggressive stand against bigotry” (NY times).  As well as a senior Jonece Dunigan expresses that the reasoning as to why these types of situations keep happening more frequently is because the University lets them happen again and again. Other students contemplate whether the university officials could take more actions to prevent these situations from happening and that they are the reason that the reputation of their campus is still “a racial backwater” (NY times).

            Another factor that was brought up within this article and one that we talked about in class for a portion of the time was the question, “If they should change their mascot from a ‘Colonel Rebel’ prompted from a bill in the state Legislature to overturn action?” (NY times). An Oxford lawyer strongly disagrees and commented how “It’s a mistake to base any decision on this, whether it was done by white racists or whether it was a hoax” (NY times).  This just illustrates the numbness that much of the community members feel toward the problems that racism actions have evoked. 

            Many University officials are attempting to take steps, which consider changes that should prevent further bigotry from happening.  Even the president of the University of Richmond is planning on taking a visit to Ole Miss to look at their campus and to offer advice.  But these attempts are on a larger scale.  What about on a more individual scale with the actual students who attend Oxford?  Who still carry around Confederate flags and spread racism? What will these larger efforts do to raise awareness to them and stop the personal racism efforts within their campus?

Bibliography

Blinder, Alan. "Racist Episodes Continue to Stir Ole Miss Campus." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 18 Nov. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/us/racist-episodes-continue-to-stir-ole-miss-campus.html?_r=0>.