Wake Me Up or Let Me Sleep

We watched Ghosts of Ole Miss in class last week and the part that set the tone of the story came from the voice in the beginning, describing an experience he had as a five or six year-old boy in Mississippi. He says as his parents watched the Klan burn a cross in his front yard, his parents had two choices: to wake him up or let him sleep through it. He says his parents decided to let him sleep. He continued with “on that night, hate and fear would not be passed to another generation.” The film goes on to tell a story within a story within a story — one about the Ole Miss football season of the early 1960s and the desegregation of the school. While these two stories are being told, the narrator expresses his concern with being left in the dark about the serious issues surrounding these times — and not just that, but that some of his family might have been involved in fight for segregation.

Within the context of “Wake Me Up,” the narrator is forced to reconcile how he feels about his Southern tradition and the way the people in his hometown treated Blacks during the 1960 period in Mississippi. Within the context of “Let Me Sleep,” he comes in contact with people who lived around that time who do not want to be reminded — people who want to forget their old selves. This is where I believe the issue lies. There were good and bad things happening at the same time, and people just don’t know how to feel good about one thing without feeling guilty about another. Well, maybe they do, but society and history will not let them have this pleasure — neither will Hollywood nor Documentaries.

For example, a lot of Southerners love the song “Dixie,” as the documentary clearly showed. However, this song is tied into a Southern way of life that reminds non-whites of a not so good time in history. There is also the example of the Confederate Flag. Although a lot of Southerners view this flag as part of their culture, this flag once represented or suggested a Southern way of life — slavery, Jim Crow, hatred, etc.

I got it: maybe if we all just went to sleep, the song Dixie and the Confederate Flag would be okay and accepted by all. Or maybe if we all woke up, these two things would not be accepted.