Why is Mississippi on the bottom of every quality of life study (schools, live)

[ColliervilleTN]

Because most people are living life not knowing what quality of life truly means. These studies are mostly based on wealth and industry. I hope this is not what you base your quality of life on because when it comes time to die you will look back on a meaningless life. I come from a state where you can ask your neighbor to borrow anything, sit on your back porch and still see stars, drive 5 miles from any point in the state and find pristine undeveloped land, determine your own point of view instead of adopting the media's, and have pride in your own state...instead of downing other's.

This was better than anything I could have written so I'll include it.

Paul Harvey on Mississippi

Mississippi is still burning. Times have changed, but the incendiaries won't quit. Mississippi, statistically, could shame most of our states with its minimal per-capita crime, its cultural maturity and its distinguished alumni. But Mississippi has enough residual gentility of the Old South not to rub our noses in our own comparative inadequacy. Moderator cut: sorry, no full copyrighted articles. If you would like to post a link, that will be fine...however, we cannot violate potential copyright issues. Thank you

[southernnaturelover]

There are some narrow minded people posting here that need to get out more. Should we assume that all of Michigan is like Flint or Detroit? Should we assume that all of Ohio is like the slums of Cleveland? Should we assume that all of Illinois is like the south side of Chicago? Geez! I'll also add that those states I just mentioned (among others) are all getting worse every year, so some people better be careful with the finger pointing.

[green_mariner]

I will tell you why Mississippi is always at the bottom in so many ways. Missississppi for so many years was run in a feudalistic way Education lags behind because of it. Most of the people who picked the cotton didn't own the lands and cotton is extremely labor intensive, but it didn't really require machinery. It was slaves and poor whites who worked the land. The land was owned by the small number of rich people. Yes, the people who dealt in cotton got rich very quickly, but little or none of that money ever trickled down. Money = power and power was in the hands of a few people, therefore, they didn't do much. The poor stayed uneducated because a.) if you worked picking cotton, you didn't have much time to learn who to read b.)slaves were not allowed to know how to read, c) the rich hired tutors for their children or sent them to boarding schools. None of that education was for the workers children. Education was never really invested in unless you were rich because rarely would the rich invest in the education of someone not related to them.
In the North, you had farming, but it was on a lesser scale and more for subsistence. Not cotton grown here. Too cold. Schools were set up in places like Massachusetts from the beginning because while society was agricultural, it wasn't to the same scale and education was valued as a way to get by in basic life.
The Industrial Revolution hit England and came to the USA a little later. Before, the South sent cotton to the mills in the North. While feudalism existed in the mills too, there was already more invested in education, even if you only got a few years. The South got the Industrial Revolution last. It wouldn't matter because a little thing called the Civil War would wipe out most of the South's wealth. Only after the Civil War did education really began to be taken seriously, and even in agricultural Mississippi, education wasn't that well invested in still. Any place that had the Industrial Revolution would have more strides in education. Any society with a feudalistic wealth distribution will also have low investment in education because the rich will take their money into private education. That is Mississippi's tragedy on an economic scale. On a racial scale, Mississippi had more blacks than whites at one time and segregation often meant if you did go to school, your school would be segregated based on race and black schools were not funded the way white schools were. After the school desegregation of the 1950's and '60's, many whites who could afford to send their children to private schools often did just that.
Today things have changed somewhat, but the feudalistic mentality still remains.
The high poverty rates also have to do with the feudalistic wealth distribution. Alot of money goes to the top and little of it trickles down.
Feudalistic ways also lead to corruption. Since many of the poorer residents aren't as educated about politics, anything can be done to them. If a large portion of the population is poor, uninformed or both, corruption will reign.

[merigold307]

How fascinating that some people who do NOT live in MS are making such wild judgments about MS. Here we have a philosophical treatise about feudalism that has absolutely nothing to do with current affairs in MS. Get a life! Better yet, go to Mississippi, Believe it! and read about some of the great things happening in MS. Mississippi Believe It! - Facts about Mississippi Business, Medicine, Entertainers, Writers, Musicians, Athletes, Arts, Healthcare, Generosity and People. Check it out, if you are willing to have some new information. Otherwise, just go on being misinformed.

[southernnaturelover]

Originally Posted by merigold307

How fascinating that some people who do NOT live in MS are making such wild judgments about MS. Here we have a philosophical treatise about feudalism that has absolutely nothing to do with current affairs in MS. Get a life! Better yet, go to Mississippi, Believe it! and read about some of the great things happening in MS. Mississippi Believe It! - Facts about Mississippi Business, Medicine, Entertainers, Writers, Musicians, Athletes, Arts, Healthcare, Generosity and People. Check it out, if you are willing to have some new information. Otherwise, just go on being misinformed.

Well, I live just across the line in Alabama, but we also have the same problem with people considering us "uneducated rednecks". I have traveled Mississippi from Meridian up hwy 45 all the way to Olive Branch and into Memphis. I didn't see poverty all around me and every time I go to Memphis it's always a pleasant trip through rural Mississippi. I have also traveled New Jersey and New York, and I saw places there that looked much worse than Mississippi.

[undertheironsea]

Maybe our state economy just sucks. Maybe our teachers are being paid way too little. Maybe we have high issues of poverty.

Or we can just say that everyone in Mississippi is a KKK member and is intent on keeping down the black population.

That's essentially what I see in half these replies. Some of you people think that it's only whites hating blacks...get real. There are bad people of every race. You're stupid if you think otherwise.

Go to South Mississippi and Louisiana and experience the wonder of being hated because you're white. Same as if you went to a little podunk place in West Virginia or Kentucky if you were black. Works on both sides, kiddos.

[southernnaturelover]

Originally Posted by undertheironsea

Go to South Mississippi and Louisiana and experience the wonder of being hated because you're white. Same as if you went to a little podunk place in West Virginia or Kentucky if you were black. Works on both sides, kiddos.

I understand exactly where you are coming from. I live in a small town (pop.7600) that is 50/50 black/white, but many of the blacks here have a very bad attitude towards whites that gets worse every year. I experience it everywhere, Wal-Mart, Burger King, the bank, you name it. It's not all blacks, but a large number of them. It's not even safe for white kids to go to public school here anymore. I love this area, but sometimes I feel like moving to Montana!

[williboy]

Move to northeast Tennessee and you can leave those problems behind. It's also very pretty up here though it can get a bit cold in the winter.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by southernnaturelover

I understand exactly where you are coming from. I live in a small town (pop.7600) that is 50/50 black/white, but many of the blacks here have a very bad attitude towards whites that gets worse every year. I experience it everywhere, Wal-Mart, Burger King, the bank, you name it. It's not all blacks, but a large number of them. It's not even safe for white kids to go to public school here anymore. I love this area, but sometimes I feel like moving to Montana!

I'm sorry to hear that. With that in mind, remember that it happens both ways. I went up to Canton,GA and I went inside a carwash place. I was stared at and treated rudely, despite the fact that I wasn't wearing my pants all the way do to you-know-where, or or being dressed like what one would perceive as "thug", not that anyone should treat anyone rudely for that reason anyway. I was also the only black person in that place. I understand what you mean about being hated.
As for the quality of life in Mississippi, I wouldn't move there, period!

[southernnaturelover]

Originally Posted by williboy

Move to northeast Tennessee and you can leave those problems behind. It's also very pretty up here though it can get a bit cold in the winter.

Yes, I vacationed in Gatlinburg last year. Very nice indeed!