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Robinett: Rivalry shirts get uglier

Missouri’s new shirt contains message insulting to more than just Kansas fans

Column photo

By Travis Robinett

Friday, November 16, 2007

Let’s tally the score for recent classless T-shirts inspired by the rivalry between Kansas and Missouri.

— Kansas’ Muck Fizzou shirts, which suggest offensive language: one to the Jayhawks.

— Missouri’s new Quantrill’s Raid shirt, which was posted by Nathan Fowler on his AOL sports blog on Monday and portrays Lawrence burning to the ground with “SCOREBOARD” underneath the picture: somewhere between 150 to 200 to the Tigers.

That’s how many people died that morning in early August 1863. No one is sure of the total, said Jennifer Weber, assistant professor of history.

“It was cold-blooded murder,” she said.

Lawrence was the headquarters of the Kansas abolitionist movement and the most prominent anti-slavery city in the state. The Civil War was two years underway, and five years had passed since Bleeding Kansas died down.

A federal law made it illegal to aid confederate guerillas — of course, this was aimed to stop Quantrill and his men. In turn, all the wives, mothers and sisters of these men were rounded up and jailed in Westport. The jail collapsed, killing four women and one girl. Weber said that Quantrill claimed the deaths were the immediate cause of his infamous raid.

“Quantrill came with people in mind who he wanted to kill,” Weber said. But he didn’t get any of them.

Instead, his raiders swept through Lawrence on horses, killing any man they found. Many of the victims were shot in the back as they tried to run away, defenseless. Then Quantrill, the man who taught outlaw Jesse James his trade, took a torch to the business district and was on his way by noon.

On the back of this controversial T-shirt, which MU students thought up, is a Quantrill quote: “Raise the black flag and ride hard, boys. Our cause is just and our enemies many.”

More surprising than the T-shirts themselves is that everyone I called at Missouri on Wednesday and Thursday — the athletics department, the multicultural department, three history professors and Missouri’s student newspaper, The Maneater — either hadn’t heard about the shirts or didn’t call me back. A Missouri logo is in clear view on the front of the shirt, and more than a day had passed since the shirts surfaced on the Web.

“Obviously we wouldn’t be endorsing something of that nature that definitely steps over the lines of good taste,” said Chad Moller, Missouri’s assistant athletic director for media relations. “If a shirt like that has an official MU mark on it, then what we would do is turn to our licensing people on campus.”

Apparently some Missouri fans think it’s OK to make T-shirts that glorify a band of murderous racists.

Their cause was slavery. Their enemies were abolitionists. They took the lives of many without regret and wanted to keep freedom away from men like Gus Rigdel, who in 1950 was Missouri’s first black student, and Norris Stevenson, who in 1957 was Missouri’s first black football player.

If Quantrill’s politics had prevailed, these two would have been in shackles instead of earning college degrees. The same goes for every black student at Missouri today, especially those who are NCAA student athletes. Can fans cheer them on by celebrating Missouri’s racist history?

“Unfortunately, Missouri has that cloud hanging over its head,” said Carol Anderson, a professor of history at the University of Missouri, who provided me with information about Rigdel and Stevenson.

Missouri’s violent pro-slavery past should be discussed in history classes rather than plastered on a T-shirt.

At Kansas, our mascot is based on the Kansas militants, known as Jayhawkers, who fought for slavery’s abolition. That’s something to be proud of.

Would any right mind argue the contrary today? Perhaps these insensitive Missouri fans, who will wear their new T-shirts and think them clever, but I hope fans of both schools disagree. Otherwise, what has this sporting event become? For the people wearing the shirts, it’s not just a rivalry or an opportunity to display poor sportsmanship, ala Kansas and Muck Fizzou, and it’s definitely not a joke. It’s pure hatred.

“It’s certainly in questionable taste, I would say, and it’s certainly insensitive,” Weber said. “It also suggests how out of control some people get with sports. There are no limits.”

— Edited by Tara Smith

Comments

Robinett: Rivalry shirts get uglier

While I agree that the Mizzou shirts are over the line, I can't help but point out the fact that the Kansas Jayhawkers were doing the exact same things in Missouri that Quantrill did over here. That is why it's called the Border WAR (not the PC "Showdown")

Robinett: Rivalry shirts get uglier

anyone see the shirts we made to fight back?

John brown, gun and bible in hand, with text tht reads "Kansas, keeping America safe from missouri since 1853"

Now that, is a classy come back...

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