American South Archives

WATCH: What Real “Ladies Of The SEC” Have To Say About That Slut Shaming HuffPost Piece

By Staff Report

The ill-fated piece by Huffington Post contributor Rebecca Walden titled “Young ladies of the SEC, cover it up!” has engendered dozens of think pieces on the matter across the Internet.

Attacked as a “slut-shaming” screed, the Huffington Post was quick to take the story down.

But Walden, for her part, did not back away from the backlash.

In an interview with AL.com, she actually doubled down on her remarks and refused to apologize for her piece.

Since she won’t apologize for it, allow us to show Ms. Walden how we feel about her views that younger women in the SEC are not “classy” enough for her on football game-days:

RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.

Is This University Of Miami Sorority Recruitment Video Worse Than That Infamous Alabama One?

By Rich Robinson

Last August, the University of Alabama greek system was slammed for being too racially homogenous and weird in the way that it objectifies women after the Bama Alpha Phi chapter released a controversial recruitment video.

As a grad of Alabama who reported on the de-facto segregation in the greek system there, I can say that those claims of racial and gender inequity are fairly accurate.

Everyone on campus and in the community knows it and efforts to change the campus have been made in recent years. Perhaps that change hasn’t come fast enough (God knows, many out of state students don’t think it has) but there is progress.

Of course, since it was Alabama (a loaded word in our national lexicon)- national sources flocked to the video and slammed the sisters of Alpha Phi into taking it down.

Here’s a version of it though that is archived online: (the audio has been changed from the original)

Even the New York Times (!) reported on the “controversy” of the Alabama white girl video at the time.

The whole Internet got worked up about it because it fed a stereotype of the American South being a place where women aren’t empowered and Stepford Wives are created en masse.

Perhaps there is some tangential truth to that stereotype, but it is a stereotype nonetheless.

Yesterday, the University of Miami chapter of Delta Gamma released a video that is just as problematic as the Alabama one.

And yet there has not been the same outrage- at least not yet.

The Miami New Times described the Miami video as looking “more fabulous than Jennifer Lopez’s big-budget, Miami-shot music video for “I Luh Ya Papi” (except with fewer male models in Speedos, and more co-eds in bikinis).”

Yeah, exactly.

Is the Miami video better because there are a couple minority students in it and because it was filmed on Biscayne Bay?

That seems like a pretty weak argument to make if you support equality.

But you be the judge.

Is the Miami video just as bad as the Alabama video?

Is there a double standard in the way national media outlets cover issues relating to race and gender when talking about a Deep South school?

In the end, I’m a dude so I’m going to check my privilege on this one and would like to see what women think about it.

Tell us what you think in the comments below.

You can also submit an opinion piece to [email protected]

Cover Photo Credit: Artec Media/ Youtube (Screengrab)

Ole Miss Students Want To Take Down Racist Mississippi State Flag, Will Rally Friday

By Rich Robinson

Student groups at the University of Mississippi in Oxford will rally Friday afternoon in order to bring attention to a cause they believe is worthy of national attention the removal of the state flag from the campus.

Mississippi is the only state in the Union that still has the Confederate battle flag as part of the official state flag. Georgia was the second to last state to rid its state flag of Confederate iconography and did so in 2003.

At 12:30 CST on Friday, numerous progressive student groups and those associate with minority including the campus chapter of the NAACP will be rallying in front of a well-known Confederate Statue in the Circle, a historical central location on campus.

The organizations, which include the Black Student Union, UM Pride Network, College Democrats and others want the Associated Student Body, the student government of Ole Miss to pass a resolution that would call for the removal of the state flag from campus.

Allen Coon is a student senator and also the president of the campus College Democrats chapter. He authored the resolution and has helped organize the event.

As a native Mississippian, the fight is a personal one for Coon.

“I love my state and I care about it deeply. But every-time, I see that flag it reminds me that we are promoting a perspective that led to a war of injustice and pain,” Coon said in a phone interview with Rise News. “And that’s not representative of my Mississippi and that’s why it has to change.”

According to the Daily Mississippian, there are 49 student senators in the Associated Student Body. That would mean that at least 25 of them would have to vote in favor of taking down the flag in order for the resolution to pass. Coon told Rise News that it would be a difficult fight to win the vote in the student senate.

“If this resolution fails, then it will bring a lot more scrutiny on the campus from a national perspective,” Coon said. “The very test of a symbol is that it should be divisive. On that basis alone, it is grounds enough to take down the flag.”

“When people think of Ole Miss I don’t want them to think, ‘oh that’s a racist school,’” Buka Okoye, the president of the Ole Miss NAACP said in an interview with Daily Mississippian reporter Dawn Boddie. “Therefore, what are we doing to rid ourselves of that image?”

According to the Mississippi Business Journal, five other public universities in the state do not currently fly the official state flag: Delta State University, Mississippi State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi Valley State University and Alcorn State University.

Even if student government passes the resolution, it will be up to campus administrators to make the final decision.

Rise News is looking for a few Ole Miss students to report for us during the rally on Friday afternoon. If you are interested then please email [email protected] with a phone number and we will get back to very quickly.

Read: Proposed Ole Miss student government resolution to take down state flag on campus

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Cover Photo Credit : /\ \/\/ /\/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)