College in Southern Utah Pressured To Change Name – Removes Statue
Now I am pissed, this political correctness has gotten way out of hand.
Dixie College, a small educational institution in St. George, Utah is being pressured to change the name from “Dixie” because of the racial overtones the name carries from the confederate south.
Are you shitting me! St. George is on the Utah/Arizona border. The climate was conducive to growing cotton, so that is what the good folks of St. George did, raised cotton. St. George was dubbed “Utah’s Dixie” due to the warm climate and the early cotton farms. THERE WERE NEVER ANY SLAVES IN ST. GEORGE…EVER!
Dixie College may have a .05% African-American student population. But one of the black students decided the name was racist. The Alumni are furious and are considering dropping funding if the name is changed.
30 years ago an artist was hired to make a statue that symbolized the college name. Last week due to the controversy school officials had the statue removed. Because of one black student. Who is supposedly speaking for the entire student body. A student body who is ambivalent about the controversy.
The artist is also fit to be tied. He can’t believe the school administration would take the statue down without any debate or discussion.
“The Rebels,” by Utah sculptor Jerry Anderson, depicts a mounted soldier holding the South’s famous Civil War battle standard and helping an injured comrade. For the past 25 years, the life-size bronze statue has stood in front of the Avenna Center, where it is now fueling the argument that the college’s name ties it to the racist traditions of the slave-holding South.
But Anderson, who has produced numerous statues on display outdoors at Dixie and Southern Utah University, was disappointed.
“It looks like they have succumbed to the adversary,” Anderson said. “They are a bunch of wusses. That’s the first action taken to get rid of it? The other people are winning. That’s the way it is in the world. We are giving in to people who really aren’t Americans.”
The rallies have been organized by critics who say the Dixie name should be retired. Last week, someone threw a sheet over the statue’s Confederate flag.
The statue’s removal is the latest development in a campus discussion that is becoming increasingly confrontational, including a warning from Dixie’s leading benefactor that donors will cut off support if Dixie is dropped.
Legislation is in the works to elevate Dixie to university status as early as next year, prompting the need to come up with a new name.
This is the young man who has been pushing for removal of the statue and also with the name change, his quote after they took it down:
“This is one of the main things I have fought for. It’s a great day.” Roi Wilkinson said. “It’s not like this is promoting anything other than negativity, and when students see it from that perspective they will agree with us.”
“If they look at it from that perspective they will agree with us” is the telling part of the quote. He knows a majority of the students don’t have an issue with the name or the statue. It is just him and whatever liberal lefty minded students he can round-up.
I don’t know how old the young man is but slavery was abolished 147 years ago, so approximately 125 years before he was born.
I’m sorry but this shit is more about making noise and stirring up controversy than it is about personal feelings. I can’t believe for one second that this kid loses any sleep about the name or the statue. But he certainly gets his name in the paper and get’s the satisfaction of destroying a beautiful piece of art that he deems to be a symbol of white authority/power or whatever.
This is what is wrong with our country nowadays. Liberal minds are making the rules.
With the media, university professors, politicians, and bizarro lefties, they are pushing buttons and officials, in whatever capacity, are crumbling. They cave like a cheap tent so as not to be considered racists. IT WAS 147 FREAKIN’ YEARS AGO! Even if you want to play the ’50’s and ’60’s segregation argument hell that was over 50 years ago.
Don’t you think that as a race you have been given preferential treatment in the last fifty years. Affirmative Action is everywhere. You have your own television network, (which if it was WET instead of BET shit would hit the fan), the NAACP, The Rooney Rule,….blah, blah, blah ,blah, blah.
Mr. Wilkinson I don’t know why you chose to come to Dixie College, but when you get your degree, would you please go back from whence you came and leave our history the fuck alone. That is all.
16 thoughts on “College in Southern Utah Pressured To Change Name – Removes Statue”
Now that is just stupid! Dixie WAS/IS part of our heritage.
St. George is a few hours south of me. Retirement community with the college as a great boost for the local economy. Very quiet and unassuming place. Until now.
I assume the asshole also refuses to drink from Dixie cups…
Well played Tim. Yeah, you would assume he would have problem with anything Dixie related.
You must be an uneducated damn Yankee.
Actually, you may want to look a little closer at the history. There were slaves and slave owners in St. George. Also, Roi Wilkinson is just one of many (both students and community members) who believe that the school should change its name.
Some of the people that settled Utah’s Dixie, after a conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had left the south, some selling farms and freeing their slaves. After being driven out of Missouri for their political views on abolition of slaves, then eventually out of Illinois into then Mexico. They didn’t bring slaves or have any thing close to the lives they had in the southern states. Yields in the test fields were not as high as expected, and economic viability of growing cotton was never achieved.
The main city in the area is St. George and its metropolitan area of about 150,000 residents.
Maybe you should check your history Amy. And by the way, the fact that “Dixie” is offensive to your sensibilities surprises me. Exactly how has the 1800’s south effected you personally? How has something 3000 miles away and over 100 years ago effected you so deeply? St. George and Dixie College has nothing to do with race.
Wikipedia can sometimes provide useful information but it cannot always be trusted. If you are genuinely interested in this topic, I would suggest talking to St. George historians who have done extensive research on the area.
The information on this link covers a majority of the reasons why I support the name change: http://www.change.org/petitions/dixie-state-college-choose-an-appropriate-name-for-the-university.
Amy, not only that…most people don’t even realize that the North STILL had slaves during the Civil War.
The Civil War had NOTHING to do with slavery…it is like today. It was about “State’s Rights.” The South did NOT want to join the Union; and they demanded that we did join them with a damn war!
A large population of the Blacks love hanging onto the lie that the Civil War was all about slavery. It WAS NOT. They have adulterated their own history.
The FIRST slave owners were African-Americans. Yes!
And, NO ONE from the U.S. sailed over to Africa to kidnap Africans to become slaves here in the U.S.
After a tribal war, the “losing side” was SOLD into slavery at an auction… much like a livestock auction we hold here in the U.S. Criminals were also sold into slavery as well. They WERE SOLD BY THEIR OWN RACE.
Many Blacks are now turning to Islam here in the U.S. To use an ancient word, it seems very “Karmic” that they are joining those who captured Africans, neutered them and turned their women into sex slaves.
True, the first slave owners of African Americans were also African American who sold their slaves to Muslim traders in exchange for goods. I agree with you that a lot of people do not know, or fail to acknowledge, this information. Looking at the entire history of slavery through the lens of today, I find it sad that human beings were sold by anyone and were treated as being less than equal. It is sad how much cruelty and inequality can be found in human history. Of course, you can find a lot of positive moments in history also, depending on what you choose to look for. I would like to remember the negative moments to learn from them so they never happen again and I would like to promote the positive moments to encourage them to continue into the future.
Amy, unfortunately, a large population of the blacks are NOT going to let go of it; after all, it has worked so well for them. They will stop when people stop “rewarding them” for bad behavior.
A Black College Student Hangs the Confederate Flag in his dorm room:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFn0QSSsphU
Ok Amy I’ll play.
I went to your site and read the letter to the Governor. What a shallow and unprovacative document. Your arguments are weak and only a sympathetic politically correct audience would give it any credence. And considering the way goverment caves to these lame ploys, you may get your wish.
As college students I was waiting to be moved by your youthfull exuberence and rational thought process, possibly changing the mind of a 50 something still clinging to the past.
You failed miserably. The name Dixie should stay and you should be embarrased.
You copying and pasting information from Wikipedia and me only referring to something others wrote makes both of our arguments pretty weak and embarrassing. I originally commented only because I saw inaccurate information and wanted to let you know about it in case you were genuinely interested in the truth.
Amy, you seem like a nice young lady. I think I will end this correspondence by saying that we agree to disagree and leave it at that. As usual in these debates, nobody can come to an agreement, much like our current politicians in DC. I proabaly got a little more snarky than usual in our discussion. And yes copying wikapedia is weak, unfortunately (or fortunateley) I work full time and can’t spend endless hours staying on top of this blog, let alone doing research on the entire history of St. George.