Alright LISTEN I’m going to give it to you straight up and I’m not going to sugar coat it. Ole Miss is racist. It’s not in your face “nooses hanging on the door” racist, but racism is alive and well at the U of M. First and foremost I want to say that I do love my school. I have great friends that provide me with a lot of support and teachers that I love. I’m part of a business fraternity that helps me in all my endeavors. It’s a great school, but if you’re an African american student be prepared for a WHOLE new world. It is ROUGH. If you want to thrive SOCIALLY at this school,which is a very important aspect of college, you need to choose wisely what you do and with whom you do it with.
Let me give you an example. On the app Yik Yak, which is very popular at Ole Miss, I posted a reminder the day before MLK day saying,“Tomorrow is MLK day, remember the dream”. A simple enough clean post. The comments I saw were not what I suspected. It was what I would’ve expected from students at Ole Miss in 1962 but not now. The first comment said, “Tomorrow is Robert E. Lees Birthday, and he was cooler”. That comment received 10 likes. I then responded saying that Robert E. Lee defended the south’s right to enslave millions of African Americans and torture them while forcing them to live in animal like conditions and asked “how was he cooler?”. The next comment read, “He was cooler because he tried to keep slavery alive. Because if slavery was still legal our neighborhoods wouldn’t be destroyed and our agriculture production rates would increase 10 fold!”. This comment received 13 likes. If you don’t know what Yik Yak is or how Yik Yak works look it up and you’ll see how bad this really was.
Another example is Greek life. If you are black and what to join a predominately white fraternity/sorority like the ones you saw on “Legally Blonde” sorry to burst your bubble but it’s NOT HAPPENING. The University of Mississippi’s Panhallenic Greek system is about as integrated as Birmingham in 1961. You’re not getting in without some pretty impressive connections. It’s not really the students but the ALUMNI that funds the organization. They threaten to pull funding if blacks are accepted. Don’t believe stuff like this happens? If you go down the road to the University of Alabama the same thing happened
Before you start saying HOTTY TODDY GO OLE MISS…do you know what an “ole miss” is. It’s what slaves used to call the slave masters wife. NO it doesn’t stand for Old Mississippi. So you need to see how deeply seeded the racism is at my school.
You have to realize you’re about to enroll in the school that represents the highest standard of southern culture. A culture where blacks aren’t very welcome. YET, if you find your niche you will come to LOVE this school and it’s people. There are a lot of great people at this school and this post is not meant to discourage anyone from going to Ole Miss. I’ve met some of my best friends here and I love it. Football season is amazing here,and there is nothing like going to the grove. Dorm life is fun and having a papa johns that doesn’t close until 2:00 in the morning is great. Yet, there are parts that I don’t like and I think prospective students like you shouldn’t be shielded from the dirty truth because you’re going to be living here! You need the full story and this is it. I just don’t want anyone to come in as naive as I did as a freshman. I walked in with rose colored lenses and they were quickly replaced after a few weeks in my first semester.
Where to start? How about the term “Ole Miss”? Has the OP every read a Dickens novel, or a novel from 19th Century England? If so, he or she would have noticed the use of this phrase. The “Ole Miss” was the wife of a gentleman; the “Young Miss” was his eldest daughter. Since the white population of the South was and is overwhelmingly British, we continued to use phrases from our home country. Please note that England of the 1800s did not have slaves or cotton plantations. The origin of this phrase had nothing to do with blacks. And in fact, it is uncertain that this is even the origin of the term “Ole Miss” as the school’s nickname. A train which served the campus from Tennessee was also called the “Old Miss,” and there is a strong argument that the school nickname came from this train.
As for Robert E. Lee, Jan. 19 is his birthday. Don’t you think referencing the MLK birthday without also mentioning the Lee birthday was a little racist on your part? I don’t know that Lee was “cooler,” but he was certainly a better man than King, in the view of many. He certainly wasn’t fighting for slavery, as he and his wife freed all of their slaves prior to the war. Virginia was pro-Union until Lincoln called up troops to invade the south, at which point Virginians sided with their cousins in the South. Gen. and Mrs. Grant, as every schoolboy knows, refused to free their slaves, and kept them until the 13th Amendment went into effect. Whether he gave as his reason for not freeing them the fact that “Good help is hard to find” is debatable, but don’t feed me this garbage about slavery when slavery was an American institution, not merely a Southern one. Quit whining about the South.
Unlike Alabama, the Ole Miss Greek system has been desegregated for 20 or more years. Several “white” sororities pledged blacks this past fall, and I think some black guys pledged IFC fraternities as well. Traditionally white Greek organizations have a completely different orientation and purpose from black groups. Black sororities, for example, are far more involved in philanthropy and academics. White groups are more social. A very large percentage of blacks have zero desire to join NPC or IFC groups simply because these groups do not offer what they are looking for. This isn’t racism; it’s people getting what they want out of life.
The OP seems to be enjoying Ole Miss. I do wish he or she was able to visit some other campuses before lambasting Ole Miss. People will hang out with whomever they wish to hang out with, and oftentimes that means whites will hang out with whites and blacks will choose to hang out with blacks. If the OP is so opposed to slavery, then maybe he or she should stop trying to own white people and instead allow them to live their lives as they wish.
I’m going to let this stay open for now, but this thread is on a very short leash. If it can stay civil and stick to “facts” (although one’s persons facts is another persons lies), then fine. It is OK if one person claims one thing and someone else another, although citations are always helpful. But as soon as it starts getting nasty, it will be closed. I don’t hold out much hope, but we will see.
The original post is long on conclusions and short on facts. I read about one Yik-Yak exchange and some vague comments about Greek life supported by data from school in a different state. The fact that “Ole Miss” needs explaining suggests that it’s origins have little impact on today’s campus culture.
For all I know, OP is correct. But I would urge potential students to insist on more information before forming a judgment.
WOW, where to start. The south isn’t racist, at least no more so than the north, east or west of this great country. Ole Miss isn’t racist, at least no more than other schools in this great country. Ladies and gentlemen it is and always has been PEOPLE who are racist. You will find PEOPLE of all geographical locations who are racist. You will find PEOPLE of all colors who are racist. You will find PEOPLE of all economic background who are racist. Are there people at Ole Miss who are racist, you betcha. But that does not make the school or the south racist. This is a very old and exhausting mindset.
True, strictly speaking, yet too many such people can spoil the institution for those who are not forewarned. This appears to be the intent of the OP; a simple warning that “racism is alive and well at the U of M.”
"Unlike Alabama, the Ole Miss Greek system has been desegregated for 20 or more years. Several “white” sororities pledged blacks this past fall, and I think some black guys pledged IFC fraternities as well. "
Gosh, that’s so forward thinking! Meanwhile, a whole 30 years ago, my “traditionally white” sorority had a black president and black members and my husband’s “traditionally white” fraternity had a black president and it wasn’t even remotely newsworthy, because that’s just how normal people did things.
See, when you guys pat yourselves on the back for this in the year 2015, you don’t even realize that you are just emphasizing how behind the times you are. It’s like commenting that the public buses in your town have black people sitting in the front row and you actually saw a black person drink from a water fountain.
I do agree that “a very large percentage of blacks have zero desire to join NPC or IFC groups simply because these groups do not offer what they are looking for. This isn’t racism; it’s people getting what they want out of life.”
Of the comments you got on Yik Yak, how many used their real names? I’d be willing to be that they were all anonymous or pseudonymous. Racism is alive and well in a lot of places. The point for me is that the racists have lost, as evidenced by the fact that they have to hide their racism and only express it under fake names, or face public shame.
The university can’t make people be good or nice. It can only create an environment where it’s clear to people that racism is not welcome, and this the university has clearly gone out of its way to do.
@Pizzagirl, Nobody is “patting” themselves on the back. They are just pointing out that the OPs comments are not entirely accurate.
There are a lot of things which contribute to segregation, or more accurately, less than full integration of the Greek system. And the situation will vary from campus to campus.
Suppose you were to give each prospective member a questionnaire asking about various preferences, political views, types of music loved or hated, ACT or SAT scores, monthly spending allowance, and so forth. I would submit that at Ole Miss you could assign prospective members to chapters based on their answers to this questionnaire, in Computer Dating fashion, and you would end up with most of the chapters being almost or completely segregated. You could then take the same questionnaire to a school like Brandeis or Wesleyan and you might end up with most or all of the chapters being integrated.
This is not an Ole Miss issue. I would suggest anyone interested in this Google (without the quotes) “segregation in the greek system -alabama”. The reason for the minus Alabama is that there was so much quacking over them that it obscures the real issue.
I happen to believe that students have the right to try to associate with those with whom they are most compatible and not worry about whether some non-member approves or disapproves of the ethnicity of the membership.
What I would say based on the OPs comment is that prospective students should visit the campus and decide on these issues for themselves.
We visited the campus, loved the hospitality, the educational opportunity was unmatched and my daughter will be headed there this fall. Whether or not people there are racist will be someone else’s battle on anonymous social media. She needs to focus her attention on the education she is there to receive. If the OP’s goal was to provide an awareness of the issues, I think he or she failed to achieve that goal by picking the wrong examples. The OP should focus on the environment that the school promotes and the racial harmony they are trying to establish. That is important to me as a parent more so then a bunch of unruly college kids expressing their hostilities.
I’ve got to say that some of the responses to the OP’s initial comment seem to support his concerns about racism. I I lived in MIssissippi for two years and had exposure to Ole Miss. There are issues of racism. When a student chooses a school it should be a place where they can thrive academically, be exposed to a diverse population and also where they can feel comfortable. If, in fact, those are the responses to MLK day, I would not want my son on that campus. By the way, he is not African American.
If you want diversity, Ole Miss has more black students (15%) than some of the more politically correct colleges like Stanford (7.5%), Berkeley (3%) and Harvard (12%).
Are there any current students, staff or parents who can comment on the racial climate at Ole Miss? Is this an on going day to day issue or are students generally accepting of one another? Is the climate generally improving?
My son is a sophomore from Ohio and absolutely loves it. He has friends from all over the country of all nationalities and had no problem finding a fraternity with a good mix of students not all from the same high school… The media seems to not let the issue die from the 60’s Meredith integration. Oxford is truly a melting pot and the students smile and speak to one another when walking to class and interacting. There will always be off the cuff remarks made anywhere on college campuses, east coast, Midwest, west coast. My daughter is headed there next year as well. I am a graduate of Indiana University and my wife from a small Catholic college, the University of Dayton and the kids we have interacted on campus, during football games in the grove and out in the restaurants seem to never want to leave Oxford. You have to truly witness it to believe it.
We have addressed this many, many times on this site. Yes, Ole Miss has a history when it comes to race. Yes, incidents involving race have happened on our campus in recent years. Google Duke, UCLA, USC, Texas A&M, University of Oklahoma, Mizzou, Yale, Alabama and others. I don’t say this to shield Ole Miss. I say it to reiterate that numerous college campuses have dealt with issues of race. Always visit your colleges of choice and see how you feel about them. Meet with faculty, staff and students. One thing I can say about Ole Miss is that they have dealt with their issues proactively. Confederate flags were removed at football games, the mascot was removed and now the state flag has been taken down (despite much opposition from Mississippians and nonresidents alike). That’s why they have their past because they were the first university in Mississippi to integrate during a time when no one wanted it. It was easier for everyone else once it was done in Oxford. Ole Miss integrated in 1962 while Mississippi State and USM followed three years later in 1965. Please believe that they didn’t want it either…
If you go and visit any college and you find that it’s not for you, that is perfectly okay. However, it’s not okay to take one personal experience and attempt to generalize it across a campus that has over 20,000 students and a few thousand faculty and staff members. I am terribly sorry if any student has had a negative experience, but it is not universal. As someone said in an earlier message, one person’s truth is another person’s lies.
Best of luck in the college search process to anyone reading this. If a college’s past prevents a student from attending, you may want to do historical research on pretty much every college in the US. You will likely find something negative.