It is a two way street Selma. But folks are angry because the rebel flag and Dixie are traveling down the street with the Klu Klux Klan today.
Klan uses the Bible, too. So did the Nazis.
Why the selectivity in what needs to be removed???
And the Klan "today?" The responses I see here all say "the last time I saw the Klan was 30-35-40 years ago."
Wanna know the last time I saw a Rebel flag?
It was when a BLACK football player at Ole Miss had one behind him while smoking a bong, and the Klan was nowhere to be seen.
I'm just saying...
Not something that happened 150 years ago.
This is what I love about this argument. The opposition to the flag ALWAYS begins with "those lost cause folks and the Civil War 150 years ago" and when I point out this obvious flaw in the whole 150 years ago claim, they immediately move to "the Klan uses it."
Klan uses the Bible, too, (and crosses for that matter) but this use of symbolism always seems to escape so many.
Now to reiterate (before I'm misunderstood) - I've never owned a Confederate flag and probably never will, I had ancestors who fought on both sides in the Civil War, and I basically 'get' the argument of there being a difference between it being part of the state flag etc and private ownership, and I wrote back when the Dylan Roof murders happened that it WILL eventually come down from the Mississippi state flag even if takes nothing more than the state being more than 50% black. (They might have pulled it off both in 2000 when they tried AND last year if they weren't so openly hateful towards individual persons about it; the 2000 debacle was heading towards removing the flag until interlopers from up north let it be known they were throwing money into the state to take that flag down - the absolute WRONG way to handle Southern politics - and before they could even get the flag down they were on a Sherman-like rampage against every single monument in Louisiana and wanted to rename Jackson Square, which proves the point the hard liners have always made: "why should I do this when you're simply going to move to something else to take away?")
As far as 'Dixie' at Ole Miss, well....they've already gotten rid of Colonel Reb, the Rebel flag itself (the so-called stick rule) awhile back, etc - so I really don't think the school is going to implode if they stop playing "Dixie."
Of course, there's a separate element at play here, too, beneath the surface that has nothing to do with race or the war. Holtz and Spurrier both the flag in SC an issue while there...makes a convenient excuse ("I can't get the good black athlete to come here," which is mostly hogwash, too). For years, some Ole Miss fans have consoled themselves that the reason they can't compete nationally "because of that flag." And guess what? When they're still as lousy as they've been the last fifty years, the excuse will be "it's gonna take another fifty years because of that flag."
The flag is an issue - but it has nothing to do with how lousy Ole Miss has been in football (particularly within the SEC) the last fifty years, either.
EDITED TO ADD:
However, there is no doubt in my mind they were hurt in the late stages of the Johnny Vaught era by their stubborn refusal to even TRY to recruit black players in their gasp of institutional racism.
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