An OpEd piece on www.clarionledger.com , Debate: Great opportunity for the state (June 17, 2008), raises some interesting questions about how the nation will perceive Ole Miss, and, how the media may portray the deep south. The writer explains,
“Both the university and the city have adopted what appears to be a wise strategy – to embrace an almost certain microscopic examination of the bloody 1962 civil rights riot that ensued on campus when James Meredith became the first African-American student to enroll there.
But, while rejecting revisionist history, the university and the town are also focusing on the identifiable, undeniable progress that Ole Miss, Oxford and Mississippi have made in racial reconciliation in the almost 46 years since Meredith’s enrollment.”
It is an interesting perception that the media might focus on Mississippi’s racially turbulent past rather than the candidates. Personally, I had to look up James Meredith to even know anything about the riots in Oxford over 40 years ago. Is there an unspoken implication that because there is a black candidate in the hunt for the presidency that this event is somehow reconciliation or ‘closure’ of the wounds from that era? The mainstream media will be tempted to pull out the grainy film footage of the riots, just because it is there and there is high-impact shock value…but what will they offer in the way of balanced reporting to demonstrate the ‘undeniable progress’ that the OpEd writer hopes to see?
Tennessee isn’t off the historical hook either. Will the media come to Nashville and focus on the sit-ins of the early 60’s or the Brown vs. Board of Education legal battle over segregation? Will Belmont’s slave-era, plantation-owner, ante-bellum history come back to haunt Tennessee? Will Belmont University’s efforts to become more racially diverse be overshadowed by the low percentages reported in recent statistics? The pickings aren’t quite as sexy as 60’s era riot footage in Mississippi, but if the media wants to portray Nashville’s history in a stereotypical-racist light, it doesn’t have to dig very deep into history.
There are media options to provide balanced, racial coverage for Belmont (think American Idol and Miss USA pageant). And Nashville can provide the distraction from its history and deliver a host of entertainment figures for sound bites and vignettes. Let’s just hope that it is Vince Gill playing one-on-one hoops with Obama rather than Hannah Montana singing “This Old Man” to McCain.
