I am from Mississippi. Mississippi. A Mississippian. I am from America's ideological toilet. Everybody everywhere in this country has the luxury of saying, "At least we're not Mississippi." No matter how bad things are in surrounding states and in other regions, everybody gets to feel a little better about themselves, thanks to Mississippi. The bad things, I mean the really, really bad things, are Mississippi. Number one in poverty, obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy, disabled persons, and unemployment. Mississppi. Dead last in education, college graduates, creation of new jobs, and anything else that is good. Mississippi. Sung about. Talked about. Laughed about. Laughed at. Even I joke about it. I say that I feel safe from terrorism in Mississippi. Nobody cares enough or thinks enough about it to blow it up!
Everything that is bad, the things that constitute the oh so hard, ideological, and omnipotent turds of an otherwise perfect society, is foisted upon Mississippi. These float down stream, and all that Mississippi doesn't get, New Orleans does. After they are flushed down the river and into the ever-receiving Gulf, these things are forgotten about by America. You think I'm playing? You think I'm bitter? When was the last time you heard any politician or public figure mention rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina for the Mississippi Gulf Coast community or the Greater New Orleans area?
That brings me to my next point. When you are from Mississippi, you expect everywhere you go to be better. The people are supposed to be more liberal in their thinking. The homes are supposed to be nicer. The roads are supposed to be smoother. The food is supposed to taste better because there is a bigger variety. Everyone is supposed to look better. Dress nicer, talk better with a clearer diction, perform better in school...etc.
Much to my chagrin, when I moved from the big country to the even bigger country in Memphis, Tennessee, I was faced and am faced with urban blight/burnout and moral depravity. I see children who have never heard of a carrot stick. I hear about murders committed over something as simple as a video game. I am looking at teenagers walking the streets in the middle of the day when they should be in school. I see a school system with a 61% dropout rate, which is good compared to Detroit's 79% dropout rate. I hear adults tell me how country people in Mississippi are. How slow they are. How stupid they act. How behind the times they dress, and in the same paragraph, tell me how they are afraid to let their children go outside and play.
I see students from the innercity neighborhoods of Chicago and Detroit teach me about the hottest clothing labels and brand names, but who have never heard of Frederick Douglass and do not know where the Ku Klux Klan started. These same children, from Detroit, have never been to Canada, or too far outside of their own neighborhoods, and are quick to complain how there is just nothing in Mississippi. One student told me that his parents and grandparents have always told him that there is nothing but trees and cotton in Mississippi, but failed to tell him about Medgar Evers or Fannie Lou Hamer. Students in Memphis don't know that Auction Street was home to the Auction block but are quick to point out that folks from New Orleans are more criminal and heathen than people from anywhere else.
As a young teacher, I am faced with a generation of peers and younger students who only know the name "Martin Luther King, Jr.," and none of the principals that he fought for or even why he died. They don't know the "National Negro Anthem," and have never heard of Langston Hughes.
That leaves me with a question: what happened elders? As you moved from the farms of Mississippi to the urban landscapes of Chicago, Detroit, Richmond, Cleveland, Memphis, Atlanta, Kansas City, St. Louis, Long Beach, Las Angeles, Houston, and even Charlotte, why didn't you stop and teach? As you bad-mouthed your country cousins and cracked jokes on them with your children, why didn't you teach your children that they don't own the "turf" they fight and kill each other over? Why didn't you teach? Why did you fail us? And now that we are adults and we are lost, why do you blame us?
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