I’ve thought about this a lot - and I’ve changed my opinion over the last 4 months.
I’ve gone from, “everything in our past that has (some) racial undertones should be removed. If we lose the EoT, so be it” to “is this really what we need as a society?”
First, I’ve been attending UT sports for 40 years. My first “job” was selling cokes at the Alumni center before and after games. I’ve sung the EoT 1000s of times in many different contexts; After rout 66, after the Rose Bowl, in celebration of Ricky, after strollin’ Nolan, after being eliminated in a regional, good and bad. With a huge smile on my face or with tears in my eyes.
For me, The EoT has always been an INCLUSIVE song. If you were young, old, male, female, binary, black, white or brown, if you threw the horns up and sang the song you were part of a group.
The song in my mind has always meant 3 main things:
1. Your actions have meaning to many people (“the eyes of Texas are upon you”)
2. Your actions have have consequence (“all the live long day...you can not get away”)
3. Your actions will be remembered (“till Gabriel blows his horn”)
this all means that as Longhorns we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Yes, I realize that at a certain time in history this song was used by stupid people in a stupid way. But if this is the lens we judge things with then pretty much everything can be questioned. The foundations of Texas Football itself can be declared racist - there was a man on the moon before a black player took the field in burnt orange.