I just finished watching the movie, “The Blind Side”. It was a wonderful movie, that I can recommend to everyone. Very good for the young and old. I don’t remember hearing a cussword, while at the same time it was totally entertaining for me throughout. (I like hearing cusswords, to me they help make the story.) Once the movie ended the irony of it hit me smack in the face.
My wife and I went to the University of Mississippi. We met there in the “Ice Storm of 1994″. She received her degree from that wonderful school. I was not able to receive my degree from Ole Miss, because I was in too big of a hurry to marry her. So, I took my degree from a college that would allow me to get married more quickly. We, have great memories of Ole Miss. We have many dear friends that live in or come from Oxford. In summation, she and I think Oxford and Ole Miss are totally great.
Ole Miss has become and is one of those little spots in the country that people can think badly about. Ole miss is one of those places in our culture of today, so many would like to see its history erased. Ole Miss is one of those places that have no defense, at least not to the people that live outside of the South. They can say anything they want about the South and Ole Miss with abandon. They can say things like, “Southern whites only care about the Rebel Flag because they hate Blacks.” If you are not from the South you can say basically anything you want about a white Southerner. This is what hit me most about the movie, “The Blind Side”.
I waited to see the movie, because of all the media attention. I thought it is much too early to tell this dude’s story. “He isn’t even been pro yet.” So, I waited. The movie has won all kinds of awards and is a box office hit. So, that made want to wait even more. Tonight, I saw the movie with my in-house Ole Miss graduate. It was a very good and entertaining movie. It was a movie that told about a wealthy white family adopting and helping a black boy. It is very clear that this family helped this young man. He is now a college graduate and NFL football player. He is a “Millionaire”.
The irony came for me when in the movie, the NCAA questioned the young man about his “parents” (the white folks) getting him to go to Ole Miss. These people opened their house and loved this young man. No racist white family WOULD EVER take a young black boy in to live with them for a few years. Pay all of their expenses just to get them on a football team.
Ole Miss has lost its flag. Ole Miss has/is losing its mascot. All because those symbols are too racist for “society”. Ole Miss, with all of its “racist” past produced three more graduates. Two of those were white and went to school under that racist past. Those two took in a black young man and helped him to become a graduate of Ole Miss just like them. If there is a school that optimizes Old Southern ways (including racism, if you say so) it would have to be Ole Miss. Yet, Ole Miss is the place (at least in this story) that brought a young black man out of a very impoverished situation with the help of a Ole Miss graduate.
