In Ole Miss' ongoing efforts to be more "inclusive" and shed its image as a relic of the Confederate South, Colonel Rebel was banned from football games this year.
Colonel Rebel is the 25-year-old school mascot, who resembles a disgruntled Colonel Sanders with horrible fashion sense.
It's worth noting that the university still licenses the Colonel Rebel image for sale on all sorts of Ole Miss merchandise. Political correctness is fine as long as it doesn't impact licensed product sales, I suppose.
In any case, the Colonel is no longer welcome at football games. I think each entry gate at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has a photo of the Colonel with "DO NOT ADMIT!" written under it now.
In his place, university officials came up with two potential new mascot designs and asked students, season ticket holders and other Ole Miss VIPs to pick the winner by online vote.
The contenders were:
• "Rebel Bruiser" - He looks kind of like the Colonel's bastard son. He's gone prematurely grey, is apparently pumped up on steroids and wears football pants, a fashionable Britney-cut bare-midriff shirt and a pimp hat. The Bruiser, I suppose, represents Ole Miss' traditions translated to the modern age; he's your typical Mississippi redneck wearing the pimp hat and goatee in a desperate attempt to cling to the glorious past of the Old South. In other words, he's a member of Kappa Alpha. |
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• "Rowdy Rebel" - Yep, he's rowdy alright. And he's damn sure pissed off at something. He's clinging to a football, but is also lunging toward us and is ready to clock somebody with a left hook. The look on his face tells me perhaps he was just gang-raped by a bunch of KAs or something. Maybe he's a pledge. |
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Over the past two decades, Ole Miss have been told they can't wave the Stars and Bars (hence the ridiculous "Battle M" flag - which the school appears to have retired now) at football games. The school took Colonel Rebel off the helmets some years back, and has banned him from games altogether now.
So when the interested Ole Miss fans were asked to vote for either the redneck KA member of the anally-raped KA pledge as their new mascot, they ignored the request in overwhelming numbers. Of the 40,000 people qualified to vote, only 2,400 bothered, prompting the embarassed athletic department to cancel the vote and put off any decision on a new mascot.
And, thus, the Rebels will remain mascot-less.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mac Diva
Say, Ken, is it true that "Keeping the Niggers Down," used to be the unofficial school song at LSU?
I have been following the Colonel Reb saga as part of my neo-Confederate beat. The rational response would be to come up with a non-person mascot, perhaps something common in the state. And, inoffensive, of course. I don't understand why that would be hard to do.
2 - Ken Womack
Not sure if that's a joke or not, but Louisiana has a better race-relations record than most of the rest of the South (i.e. there's no movie called "Louisiana Burning", their governor didn't stand in the doors of LSU to keep blacks out; they've never had a Confederate emblem on the flag ...)
As long as Ole Miss' name is the Rebels (which I don't have a problem with), they are going to have this issue. You just can't make a Rebel mascot who doesn't evoke Rebel (as in Old South) images. It's just fun to watch them try to make it non-controversial.
3 - Mac Diva
Really, I've heard that from people who know about Louisiana. (No, it wasn't David Duke.)
So, why can't Rebel be tossed and replaced with something else at Ole Miss?
4 - Ken Womack
I'm not saying Louisiana is some utopia of racial harmony, but there's historically been less racial tension there than elsewhere in the South (I'm an LSU grad myself and lived in the state for about 14 years).
Ole Miss won't lose the Rebels as their mascot. If you've never been to Oxford it may be hard to understand just what being The Rebels means to Ole Miss, just what Ole Miss means to Mississippi and just what Mississippi means in terms of the Old South mentality. The "aristocracy" of Mississippi, which is primarily what produces Ole Miss students, is as Old South as you can get. They will always be Rebels, but they are trying to soften that image.
5 - Chris Arabia
How about a confederate rebel soldier lying in a pool of his own blood? That would seem to have something for everyone.
6 - kara
Oooh, aren't you clever!
I love how it's perfectly acceptable to make that kind of joke about southerners, but if you'd said "a black guy" or "a Jew" or "a gay guy", people would be chasing you through the streets with torches.
Southerners: The last socially-acceptable scapegoat.
7 - Chris Arabia
yes, i am. and if ole miss wants to celebrate the insurrection that would have preserved slavery, fine, but they should compromise, which is what my suggestion would do.
when you figure out whether to accuse me of watching fox news, let me know.
8 - JR
Wait, shouldn't Chris be accusing kara of watching FoxNews? I'm confused.
In any case, nobody's chasing people through the streets with torches. That would at least be honest persecution.
I think we should be thankful to southerners for being the last socially-acceptable scapegoats. Without them, we might have to outlaw humor.
9 - Cap'n Ken
Civil War was about states' rights, not slavery.
[poking the fire]
10 - Mac Diva
Oh, Gawd! Just a few weeks since my series on why the Civil War was definitely about slavery and here is another one of those people who don't understand that the
states' right at issue was keeping people as chattel.
11 - Cap'n Ken
Well, if Mac Diva writes it, it MUST be true!!!
12 - Mac Diva
"Poking the fire," indeed.
13 - kara
Mac's clearly one of those delusional northerners that believes that all southerners were (and are) racist slaveowners, while the noble northerners would never DREAM of such inhumane behavior.
Yeah, right.
Whatever it takes so you can sleep comfortably at night.
14 - kara
Chris,
You watch news? I figured you for a cartoon guy. You certainly seem to have a "Foghorn Leghorn" perspective on the South.
Perhaps you should turn them ALL off and watch a little History Channel.
15 - Chris Arabia
kara,
well I figured YOU for an embittered killjoy, and it looks like i was right.
because you insist on fighting a losing battle (kind of like... the south in the late stages of the war), explain exactly how my statement that a rebel soldier, bloodied, would offer something to all sides of the confederate symbolism debate reveals a "foghorn leghorn" grasp of history.
pro-reb people get their noble soldier, anti-reb people get him whacked around.
or are cheap insults the best you can do?
16 - Eric Olsen
The two sides to this are: the South had slaves, they fought a brutal war to retain them, hundreds of thousands of Northerners died to - among other things - free them. This is reality - don't try to sugarcoat the immoral, anti-human, anti-Christian, despicable ugliness of slavery, nor the racism that allowed it to perpetuate. Suck it up and deal.
That said, the war was 150 years ago. The vast majority of Southerners have done exactly what I mentioned above and should not be blamed for what their vile ancestors did. Many areas of the South are now more enlightened than many areas of the North. With modern mobility, many people in the South do not descend from slave-era Southerners anyway.
Symbols count, don't pretend they don't. The Confederacy was an abomination, any non-negative reference to it is unacceptable. Clear your minds of any uncertaincy in this regard and the South may finally be said to have overcome its heinous past.
17 - kara
Feel free to dismiss me as some revisionist historian if you like, but the cause of the Civil War was not as black and white as you make it sound. There WERE slave owners and slaves in the North. And many of those slave-owners fought on the Union side in the war. And there were millions in the South who did not at any time own slaves. And they fought for the Confederacy. No war is EVER as simple as you make the Civil War sound.
I agree that symbols count. The confederate flag is as much a symbol of racism as the nazi flag is of anti-semitism, though neither of those were the original intent. And neither should ever be flown or displayed publicly.
But to say that the Ol' Miss "Rebel" mascot is a symbol of racism is looking for meaning where there is none. Southern history may be ugly, but we should acknowledge it and move on, not rewrite it to our own benefit or erase it to ease our collective consciences.
18 - chris
Since when are sarcasm and caustic wit the exclusive property of northerners? I figured since you seem to have a sarcastic sense of humor, you'd recognize it when you saw it.
Seems you can dish it out, but not take it, eh?
19 - kara
My mistake. The above was posted by me (kara) TO Chris. In my haste, I typed his name in the name field instead of my own. Apologies all around.
20 - Eric Olsen
yes, the Civil War was more complicated than just pro-/anti-slavery, but that doesn't change the fact that the South sanctioned slavery and the North did not, nor that this was THE central bone of contention between them. Neither did any but a tiny number of Northerners have slaves and it was illegal if they did. Neither does it matter that most people in the South didn't own slaves, it wasn't that most of them didn't believe in it, they just couldn't afford it.
I reiterate: there is NOTHING noble about the Confederacy, nothing to defend, nothing to explain away, nothing but shame. When ALL stop trying to defend this or that aspect of it, the legacy of slavery can finally be put to rest.
21 - Bill Wallo
The notion that the Civil War was "about" state's rights (as opposed to slavery) as been batted around for the 150 years Eric mentions. It is easy to set up the "states' rights" argument as some sort of defense - but could you please articulate what states' rights were at issue? The economy of the southern states at the time absolutely depended upon slave ownership, despite the fact that many southerners did not own slaves. The fact of the matter was that many in the South saw the election of Abraham Lincoln as a threat to their way of life.
The primary right at issue in the context of the war was the right of the southern states to secede (or withdraw) from the Union. One can say then that the war was over whether or not a state could secede (thus "states' rights"). However, the only reason the southern states wanted to withdraw from the Union was over the fear that slavery would be abolished or that some of the recent legislative or judicial battles (such as the fugitive slave act or the Dred Scott decision) would be overturned. There was no other reason for secession. Period.
22 - kara
Eric,
It wasn't that "northerners" didn't believe in slavery. It's a matter of geography. Slaves arrived on ships. Ships need ports. The majority of ports in the United States at the time were in the Southeastern U.S. Shipping slaves north was both expensive and often not cost-effective because many of the slaves would become ill or die in transit. Plus, the climate in the northeast isn't as conducive to agriculture as the South, so fewer slaves would be needed for farm work there. The issue of slavery in the north wasn't a moral one, it was an economic one. And it was easy for the north to take the "moral high ground" and abolish it, because their economy didn't depend on it. If the north had a better climate and more ports, there'd have BEEN no war.
23 - kara
or you could just read these:
http://www.hudsonvalley.org/web/phil-manor_interpretation.html
http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_lp_burialgrounds.htm
24 - Eric Olsen
Contributing factors to the way things ended up are interesting, but are wholly unimportant compared to the way they ended up. And they way they ended up was with the South fighting to secede so they could maintain slavery.
What is the net result of your "mitigating circumstances"? Do you see moral equivalence between the North and the South? Do you not see the South fighting for slavery and the North fighting against it? Is it that you want the Confederacy's relative moral standing elevated or do you want to see that of the North reduced?
25 - kara
Eric,
I'm not trying to justify slavery. It was an abomination. But I am trying to get you and others to realize that in reality, there is no elevated northern moral standing to BE reduced. Slavery existed in the North. Period. Had it been practical, there would have been more slavery in the North. Period. There were circumstances other than the percieved "evil intentions" of the South that contributed both to the existence of slavery and to the Civil War. If you want to believe that the North has some "elevated moral ground" here, fine. The fact that (a) the largest known slave burial ground in the United States is right in the middle of Manhattan, and (b) New Jersey was one of the last states to abolish slavery would seem to contradict that belief.
The war's over. The south lost. If the south had won, I don't believe for a minute that slavery would still exist today. It was an immoral and unethical system that should never have been put into place. But the North has no business scapegoating the South for it. There's blood on everyone's hands.
Yes the South fought to secede in order to preserve their economy which was based on the abhorrent system of slavery. Had the northern economy been equally dependent on slavery, the war would never have happened. Your "elevated moral standing" is based on economics, not some inherent moral superiority that the north had or has over the south.