Mississippi must do away with 'Ole Miss,' 'Rebels' and Confederate flag

[struggle4progress]

Mike Bianchi
ORLANDO SENTINEL

HOOVER, Ala. — With all due respect to the first two lines of the de facto anthem of the Confederacy during the Civil War, many Southerners are trying their best to forget about those old times in Dixie Land: horrific old times that included slavery, segregation, Jim Crow and George Wallace ...

But in the wake of the racially motivated murders in Charleston, S.C., the University of Mississippi and the state of Mississippi need to do more and do it now. It's time for the university to change its "Rebels" nickname and stop referring to itself as "Ole Miss" — a phrase derived from a term slaves used when addressing the wife of a plantation owner ...

I can still see the bitterness on Jack Jackson's face back in 1994 when he talked about how he and his family would receive recruiting letters from Ole Miss and immediately toss them into the trash can. Jackson, who grew up in Moss Point, Miss., ended up attending the University of Florida.

"We found it hard to go to a school that waved a Rebel flag and symbolized something we disliked and opposed so much," Jackson said then. "'That was kind of like going to a school and having them slap you in the face every day. It's a constant reminder of what was and what, in their minds, still should be" ...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/florida-gators/os-ole-miss-mike-bianchi-0717-20150716-column.html

[Igel]

1. There's some evidence that "Ole Miss" is

like the origins of "squaw" and "picnic" that I've heard expounded.

In the last two cases, the origins were expounded incorrectly, but once they'd acquired the taint of having sexist or racist etymologies it's hard for people to let go of them. To even doubt the false etymologies is to be insulted. You don't measure such words and their histories with a common yardstick, in them you can only believe (apologies to Tyutchev).

Sounds like "Ole Miss" was suggested by somebody who heard black field-hands refer to the lady of the house that way. Except that the "somebody" was born a decade after the war and was referring to then-current usage in the 1890s ... and only referred to the yearbook. (The name spread a bit later to include the school, after first referring to a train.)

Make of the racial content of that what you will, but that would make it not antebellum usage but post-Reconstruction usage.