My comprehensive Bama vs. Texas pro/con assessment matrix has chosen in #RollTide v #HookEm
This has been a difficult day for me. While I generally don't care about football or the South, I've been drawn to the epic Southern Civil War that is the Citi BCS Championship (aka Bailout Bowl). I've got many positive connections to both states, so I decided to put together a Rumsfeldian two by two matrix to analyze the situation.
If you can't read the text in the image above, here it is.
Bama - Pro
- 100% of Bamas I know are amazing. (Granted, I only know two, but the statistics don't lie!)
- "Bama" sounds cool. (It's just a better shorthand than "Texan" plus I grew up in DC where "bama" was a dis, so to see a state try to own its pejorative is uplifting. Kind of like black people tried to do with the N word)
- Superior YouTube videos about football. (see here, here and here vs this lonely Longhorn vid)
- My mother once drove from DC to Mobile in her black, T-top Z with her Doberman and picked up some moonshine
- Rosa Parks
Bama - Con
- "Rosa Parks"
- incarceration rate
- no Austin
- Tried to murder Ali G as Bruno (the cheerleading scene)
- racism
Texas - Pro
- Austin. (and everything about it like the Alamo Drafthouse)
- SXSW. (all of it: film, music and my baby, interactive)
- "Fuck Yall I'm From Texas" t-shirts
- Great people from Corpus. (granted, I have a small sample size, but that number doesn't lie!)
- Houston's lesbian mayor.
- Matt "Mayday" Saracen. (and the entire Friday Night Lights story)
Texas - Con
- Bush 1
- Bush 2 (sort of. he was raised in New England)
- The whole "Republic" thing. (seriously. join the union)
- incarceration rate
- Bigger Racism (cause everything is bigger in TX)
If I'm honest, I have a closer personal connection to Texas. More friends. I actually
go there on a regular basis. You know, stuff like that. But Alabama seems sweeter, and it's a part of the United States. In some ways, this battle isn't so much a "Southern Civil War" as it is an actual Civil War between the United States Of America and Whatever Texas Is.
Texas's motto is "Hook 'em Horns" referring to a violent and grotesque act wherein a cow gouges something with its cow horns. Pretty barbaric. Alabama's is "Roll Tide" referring to the Crimson Tide as it rolls over its opposition. Pretty beautiful
An Alabama facebook friend posted this today:
Raised on alabama's sod
i'm southern by the grace of god
bear bryant taught me the meaning of pride
my pledge allegiance is ROLL TIDE!!!
Come on yall. That is FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. And so, in conclusion, I side with heart. I side with poetry. I side with grace and America and youtube and the better hashtag.
#RollTide.
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer
Give em Hell Alabama!
and for the hell of it
#WHODAT!