After reading Rick Cleveland’s column in the October 14 issue of this paper, I couldn’t agree more.

Both Ole Miss and Mississippi State are on top of the sports world. Miss. State is number one in the football polls. Ole Miss is number three. I’m happy for both schools. These are our young men playing for these colleges.

There are people hating Ole Miss right here in my hometown of Panola County — Batesville, Sardis, Como. When I go to Senatobia people are talking against Ole Miss. When I go to Charleston and Marks, there are people talking bad about Ole Miss. I could understand it if these people were hard-core college football fans and Ole Miss was about to play their favorite team, but that’s not the case.

“Ole Miss is a prejudiced school.”

That’s what most of these ignorant people say. There’s prejudice everywhere.

This country used to be prejudiced. But now we have voted twice for a black president.
When the Ole Miss football team welcomed Alabama to Oxford on October 4, you couldn’t imagine all the people who were pulling for Alabama. There’s prejudice in Alabama. That’s where the chain gang originated — in the State of Alabama.

Forgive me if I’m wrong but when I drive by the Ole Miss campus, I don’t see a billboard that says, “No Blacks Allowed.”

I went to school with Tony Conner’s parents. Is he black or am I color blind? Issac Gross and Temario Strong — what race are they?

When we are talking against Ole Miss, we are talking against them also. Let’s start cheering for them during their time of success.

Black people work at Ole Miss. I was talking to a couple of ladies who work there. They had Ole Miss license plates for a couple of years. We all know ladies are more sensitive than men, that’s just the way it is. People used to talk so bad about Ole Miss that the ladies started to feel guilty and eventually took the Ole Miss plates off their cars.

I told them that they should have left them on, that the people who were talking against the license plates were probably people who didn’t have cars in the first place.

The bottom line is this: Both of our big colleges are on top of the sports world. And at the end of the college football season, Mississippi State and Ole Miss will play each other in the annual Egg Bowl.

I am planning on being at that game, looking forward to seeing Deshea Townsend on Miss. State’s sideline and cheering for both teams. Because no matter who loses that game, the state of Mississippi is already a winner.

If you’re not with us, then shut up.