Sweet Ole’ Mississippi

I love Misssissippi. I went to the state 13 years ago to help repair damage after Hurricane Katrina. The people I met -- black & white, were humble folks who were thankful that we were there. The climate, natural beauty & interestingly diverse ways of life I came across fixing roofs and rebuilding houses made me feel proud to be American--and the people we were helping felt proud I was an American too.

Bigotry did exist in the hearts of some people. A woman asked me (oddly) to pray for the safety of a Christian man in Afghanistan with her, while then going on to pray we Muslim heathens saw the light of her one true faith -- awkward.

Mississippi Burning

Fast forward 13 years and a depressing additional 35 pounds on my body, and that sense of divide between Mississippi and the rest of the country has only become more pronounced. As other states in the south have begun to emerge as flagships of the new STEM-focused economy, Mississippi has continued to lag stubbornly behind. It is less educated and poorer than all of its neighbors — ranking last in healthcare, second to last in economy, fourth to last in education and 49th in the nation in opportunity for upward mobility. Yet, somehow, it ranks sixth in quality of life — and 17th out of 50 in social environment, per U.S. News & World Report.

That last ranking-anomaly explains one of two things: why so many Mississippians continue to vote red, despite their state being the butt of national (and often liberal) jokes about their rankings among the other 49 states in the union. Mississippi’s largely rural population of 2.9 million people prefer to be left alone to their own devices. Life is good in the Ole’ South, argue many. Why do outsiders have to come and meddle in Mississippi’s ways?

However, the state clearly has problems, problems that won’t be solved by their pride in being home to the largest Bible-binding factory in the country. The state has some of the worst infrastructure in the country. College attendance is very low, and even though many tech jobs today in the IT field and beyond don’t require expensive and time-consuming liberal arts degrees—the state has a remarkably low penetration of broadband internet. Along with Louisiana, a review of available data from the FCC suggests that Mississippi has perhaps the lowest broadband access of any state in the Old South.

Mississippi Masala