What's it like in the delta? - Mississippi (MS) - Page 3 - City-Data Forum

JacksonPanther · 01-07-2011, 02:27 PM

A few months ago, someone posted asking about relocating to Greenwood. This thread was the response:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/missi...reenville.html

Please note the second posting:

"I met some wonderful people in the Delta! We loved the kids' private school and we loved our church. But I had never experienced poverty like that in my life. And we've lived all over everywhere. It was as if time had just stopped in the Delta. Segregation is still a very real part of that world. We were told that the Country Club in Greenville is "all white". Can you even imagine that in 2008? Of course, we didn't even consider joining. And we were encouraged to send our kids to the "all-white" private school. We chose the more diverse Catholic school because we didn't want our (white) kids in an all white school. I just wasn't adequately prepared for that level of racism."

People really jumped on my previous posting in this thread a few days ago, but it was in the same spirit as the text I quoted above.

I said that the white folk in the Delta manage to keep all the decent jobs for themselves. The response was that there are no good jobs for anyone - apparently there are enough jobs to keep the all-white country club open. And as expected the white people (who according to the response to my posting don't have jobs) have managed to carve out an all-white private school for their kids, and leave the public schools to those without options.

Trying to pretend this crap isn't going on even today won't fly.

Listener2307 · 01-07-2011, 06:33 PM

Racism exists. Be part of the problem if you like, or part of the non-racist solution if you can.

strumpeace · 01-07-2011, 09:07 PM

JacksonPanther --

I think you're speaking a language few on C-D would understand. Privilege is a very real thing that benefits generation after generation after generation. In fact, it snowballs. Poverty and oppression replicate themselves, too. Yes, white people today continue to reap the benefits of past (and present) sins. Today doesn't exist in a vacuum.

gvillesux · 01-07-2011, 09:41 PM

you ever lived here, then you would understand what i mean. black on white racism is rampant, in everything from business to folks on the street. the biggest difference is now we don't have busloads of college kids coming in from up north saying "end the discrimination".

as to sending kids to private schools, yes every family that can afford it does so for quality of education and MOSTLY for security of their kids. St Joe is the biggest private school here and is getting close to half black, yep even the blacks don't want their kids in the schools with the thugs. graduation rates at publics schools do good to get better than about 70%, while private schools have nearly 100%. "private school" kids of all races nearly all go on to college, while public school graduates rarely make it out of their neighborhood.

as to rapes and lynchings, nearly every week the PD reports a few rapes almost all of them are white females and black males. lynching is not done in the sense of hanging from a tree, but it is a regular occurence for a mob to severely beat someone of another race, many times shooting them afterwards. i will say that there are no white gangs roaming the streets by the hundreds, and it is strange how everytime someone is beaten one of those gangs was there doing it.

so yeah, move down here and spend some time with your eyes open and REALLY look around.

*i am in NO WAY saying that blacks were not severly abused in the past. i am only saying that they now have a large number of folks that thinks because their parents/ancestors were treated that way they have the right to seek retribution.

mississippimagnolia · 01-08-2011, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

A few months ago, someone posted asking about relocating to Greenwood. This thread was the response:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/missi...reenville.html

Please note the second posting:

"I met some wonderful people in the Delta! We loved the kids' private school and we loved our church. But I had never experienced poverty like that in my life. And we've lived all over everywhere. It was as if time had just stopped in the Delta. Segregation is still a very real part of that world. We were told that the Country Club in Greenville is "all white". Can you even imagine that in 2008? Of course, we didn't even consider joining. And we were encouraged to send our kids to the "all-white" private school. We chose the more diverse Catholic school because we didn't want our (white) kids in an all white school. I just wasn't adequately prepared for that level of racism."

People really jumped on my previous posting in this thread a few days ago, but it was in the same spirit as the text I quoted above.

That was actually an old quote from me. Honestly, we have lived all over this country and overseas. I've never in my life experienced anything like the Delta. Again, we made some wonderful friends. And we loved our church. But no way in hell would I raise my children around that type of racism. We were there a year and left at the very first opportunity.

Folks, if you haven't lived there, you don't know what you are talking about. And if you are "from the Delta" then you really don't know anything else, do you? No where else that I have ever been has been so openly racist. I've lived in places where there was racial tension. I've been around plenty of people who were racist. But Greenville is different. Racism permeates everything in that town.

ncguy444 · 01-08-2011, 09:42 AM

I once had a black gentleman call me a "white ******". This was in Jackson, MS so racism is everywhere. The thing I never understood was what exactly is a ******?

ncguy444 · 01-08-2011, 10:36 AM

It has only been 40 or 50 years since Jim Crow. The pain still lingers in many people over 50 years old. Most of the land, mineral rights, major businesses are owned by folks that accumulated their wealth during slavery. This is something that you can not deny. Even after emancipation there was blatant rampant discrimination that lasted over 100 years. Many of the social ills in the black community are direct results of this period of time. Nothing like a lack of education, medicine, jobs, with discrimination and ill conceived social programs to destroy the moral of a group of people. There was also the mass migration to more prosperous parts of the country that destroyed family cohesiveness. With that being said is it really that hard to understand that some attitude might be given to your silver spooned, well educated, inheritance given behind at the McDonald's by some minimum wage worker who has to worry about basic necessities.

Listener2307 · 01-08-2011, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ncguy444

...........With that being said is it really that hard to understand that some attitude might be given to your silver spooned, well educated, inheritance given behind at the McDonald's by some minimum wage worker who has to worry about basic necessities...........

As you said, it would not be hard to understand, but:
1) The racism encountered by one person need not be returned. That is, when I am faced with racism - and I am from time to time - I ignore it. I will give no one the authority to make me a racist. Will not occur.

2) How would the above portrayed minimum wage worker know about my upbringing, except through his own suppositions? He can not know. And in my case he will suppose wrongly. In fact, in most cases he will suppose wrongly. I am no more eligible to join the Country Club than he (I doubt that I would be accepted), and I am no more well educated than what the public system has offered, followed up by my own initiative and 65 years of working at it. In other words, I am nothing that he cannot become.

As we agreed, it would not be hard to understand, but his anger is rarely placed well.