In Mississippi, we are accustomed to conservative Christianity being the only religion.
In Mississippi, we have extreme racial disparities (16% of white children are poor while 50% of black children are poor).
In Mississippi, poverty is concentrated among families headed by single mothers of color with young children.
In Mississippi, women are half the workforce and two-thirds the minimum wage workforce.
America, welcome to becoming just like Mississippi!
Those of us doing bare-knuckled social justice work in Mississippi aspire to make Mississippi more like the rest of the nation, not to have the rest of the nation become like us.
We are grown accustomed to having our state’s Republican supermajority kill our women’s economic security legislation even before it even emerges from committee.
We are accustomed to a governor who quite publicly states his intention to make abortion (a legal procedure in the country) illegal in Mississippi.
We are accustomed to a state agency that prefers to leave welfare funds unspent rather than spending them on providing low income working families with affordable childcare.
We are accustomed to state legislators that rail against Obamacare while 100,000 of our state’s low income working parents remain uninsured.
Maybe we can offer the rest of American help now as you prepare to become like Mississippi. Here is your to-do list:
- Learn perseverance.
- Learn to speak two languages (English and racist code language).
- Expect failure – a lot of it.
- Learn that culture and prejudice trump fact and evidence.
- Learn that standing for justice and doing the right thing is necessary even when you know you won’t win because there is no other stand to take that leaves you on the side of right.
- Learn to take ridicule and hate.
- Learn to align with those who have fought longer than you have been alive and had harder and riskier battles than you will ever face – because they can teach you courage for justice in the face of adversity and hate.
I wish you didn’t have to learn from us, America. I wish we were learning from you.
But now that the USA is on its way to becoming Mississippi, we sure do have some experience to share.