THE SOUND, THE FURY
The racist outburst on Nov. 30 by former Mississippi state senator Brad Lott would have sent shock waves regardless of where it had occurred or who had screamed the words. That the tirade came from a prominent Mississippian during an Ole Miss football game at the Oxford campus made the incident all themore disturbing.
With 45 seconds left in Mississippi State's 17-0 win over Mississippi, Lott, 33, who served in the legislature from 1992 until last January, descended from the stands to a fence 20 yards from the field. For nearly a minute he screamed furiously at State nose guard Eric Dotson, cursing him and threatening to"get" him. He repeatedly called Dotson "n*****."
Lott's racist rage was apparently ignited by a 1994 NCAA investigation during which Dotson, a recruit from Pascagoula High, said that Lott, a zealous Ole Miss booster, had given him free meals and car rides. The allegations are one reason that Mississippi is in the midst of a four-year probation and
lost 24 scholarships in '95 and '96.
In the face of public outcry, Lott last Saturday resigned his seat on the board of the Jackson County Port Authority. For itspart,
Ole Miss has formally disassociated itself from Lott. "We won't accept money from him, we won't communicate with him,"says Mississippi athletic director Pete Boone. "It's frustrating because we've come so far, and then an isolated incident makes people recall the racism in our history."
Even now, Ole Miss has a reputation for hostility toward blacks."I'd never been called the n word until we played there," says Dotson. "At the [Nov. 30] game I saw a woman in the stands making ape gestures and pig noises at the black players."
The Confederate flag is still waved by many fans at Mississippigames, and the school mascot is a goateed white man called Colonel Rebel. "Only a child could do what Lott did, so I don'ttake him seriously," says Dotson. "And I feel sorry for some ofthe people at Ole Miss because there are good people there. But in 1992 I came to a game there when I was thinking about signing with Mississippi. An Ole Miss player fumbled and somebody in the stands shouted, 'Get that n***** out of the game.' I knew Icould never go to that school."
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by dawg93
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4179066/PUNTER.0.0.gif)
