Ole Miss vs University of Mississippi

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The University of Mississippi is an institution of higher learning just as any of the 629 public 4- year universities in the United States. Due to the location of the university, the school faces criticism and publicity for its unconscious efforts and decisions to uphold its southern heritage. Though there were attempts to modernize the school, “Ole Miss” still holds the image of the Old South. The decisions and actions of supporters of the school’s traditions are weighing heavily on the universities inability to progress. There is a difference in the meanings of certain symbols based on a person’s understanding, genetic make-up, cultural background and race. Though the university is upholding its traditional ways of learning and functioning, change is somewhat required by society. “. The University of Mississippi does uphold a traditional way of life within the name, “Ole Miss”, and other symbols of racial segregation, confederacy and white superiority. The University of Mississippi will be seen as inferior to other universities because of its faithfulness to “Ole Miss” and upholding southern traditions. The traditions of the University should be dealt away with or altered, if not, the traditions of the University will continuously hold an “open wound”. In order to uphold the South’s “southern identity”, the use of symbol as traditions at the University of Mississippi preserve a way of life that is interchangeable with white identity. “Ole Miss” “Ole Miss” is the school many student’s hope to attend while other’s plan to attend the University of Mississippi. The difference between the University of Mississippi and Ole Miss is well described by Frank E. Everett Jr. “Here is a valid distinction between The University and Ole Mis... ... middle of paper ... ...n archetype connected to the slave past while mocking an African American post-slavery and Ole Miss represents the name the enslaved called the plantation owner’s wives. Merely these symbols were kept around to keep the feeling of the Old South alive. Works Cited Brundage, W. Fitzhugh, Inc ebrary, and ebrary Psychology and Social Work Collection. 2005. The Southern past: A Clash of Race and Memory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Newman, Joshua I. 2007. Army of Whiteness? Colonel Reb and the Sporting South's Cultural and Corporate Symbolic. Journal of Sport & Social Issues 31 (4): 315-39. W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “Introduction, No Deed but Memory” in Where Theses Memories Grow: History, Memory, and Southern Identity, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 1 -28.

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