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Completely happy to let it carry on....but it sort of seems to me like everyone that wanted to has had their say about race relations in the delta? I'd say it's about the same there as everywhere else...some folks get along, some don't. Some are racists and bigots, some aren't. Some people are just plain stupid, some have made an effort to move into the 21st century. I honestly don't see the delta as facing any bigger racial issues than anywhere else, but I'm not living there anymore. Maybe I'm wrong. It happens on a pretty regular basis.
No, you've misunderstood me....I've said let's get it back on track or let it go. People who search the forums for answers will look at the title and think race relations is indeed what this thread is about, but it's segued off somewhere and we're talking about school spending .... even with the six degrees of Kevin Bacon working for me, I can't make it even remotely match up to the original topic.
All threads eventually take on a life of their own. It should not be the mission of a moderator to insist that the discussion adhere to a fine line of logic or to a narrow topic with finite margins. This entire conversation has been civil, even if not between the narrow rows the moderator prefers. If that is the intent of the board, count me out as it will never survive. When someone posts a thread and drops out, the conversation might either die off or continue, with ancillary directions, all hopefully educational.
If this is a violation of the rules, perhaps the rules should state that. As long as the conversation offers serious points of view and does so respectfully, what is the point of a moderator admonishing the posters that the conversation is not on the subject of the original post? I'm just sayin'................
All threads eventually take on a life of their own. It should not be the mission of a moderator to insist that the discussion adhere to a fine line of logic or to a narrow topic with finite margins. This entire conversation has been civil, even if not between the narrow rows the moderator prefers. If that is the intent of the board, count me out as it will never survive. When someone posts a thread and drops out, the conversation might either die off or continue, with ancillary directions, all hopefully educational.
If this is a violation of the rules, perhaps the rules should state that. As long as the conversation offers serious points of view and does so respectfully, what is the point of a moderator admonishing the posters that the conversation is not on the subject of the original post? I'm just sayin'................
Don, then start a thread on educational spending in Mississippi...the TOS link is below...but here's the pertinent part:
Stay on topic. Attempts to hi-jack threads by switching topics or going off topic will be deleted and infractions issued. This is not a chat room - when people hi-jack threads by posting messages that are of interest to only few people, the threads often stop being useful discussions of initial topics.
This isn't that hard to understand. Although there is some good info in this thread, it has NOTHING to do with the original post. Start another thread. It ain't that difficult.
Don, then start a thread on educational spending in Mississippi...the TOS link is below...but here's the pertinent part:
Stay on topic. Attempts to hi-jack threads by switching topics or going off topic will be deleted and infractions issued. This is not a chat room - when people hi-jack threads by posting messages that are of interest to only few people, the threads often stop being useful discussions of initial topics.
This isn't that hard to understand. Although there is some good info in this thread, it has NOTHING to do with the original post. Start another thread. It ain't that difficult.
I am tending to agree with you SIA. I'd say kill it. Most folks can't discuss one thing or one subject anyway without dragging politics into it. One thing I've noticed, though, re the TOS and your reposting of it above: If the hi-jacking threads are to be deleted, why are those same threads still here? I'm just trying to understand, that's all. B/R
Because I assumed with enough warnings that everyone would get the picture. And I've had personal discussions with some of the folks in this thread just like I've posted a few warnings.
We can discuss a theme within a theme, as long as the original theme is somewhere in the ballpark. In this case, I've almost forgotten what it is. Thank goodness for headers, no? Anyway, on 9/25 I attempted to get it back on track - this was after this subject got bounced around from different forums for a couple of days - and it straightened up and then tilted over again. And now it's about fallen and it can't get up. I was going to bounce it back to Politics and Controversies but figured they probably didn't want it this far down the road either.
I will allow all the latitude in the world as long as we can still see the smoke signals from the original post...frankly, I was hoping this fire might die out.
Gee...what's all the "hoopla" about? I've read so many replies on this subject, and not one, so far, from anyone acutally living right now in the Mississippi Delta! I, for one, do live in the Mississippi Delta, Greenville (the heart of the Delta), and have for decades!! Uhh, what was the question again...oh yeah, race relations...you get a black version and you get a white version! One counteracts the other...that's the Mississippi Delta! Black and White...never in agreement...one group out voting the other...right now, the black group is in majority rule...one group does the opposite of what the other group did...as a result, the Delta, Greenville, cannot keep industry or get new industry...opportunity here is shot to hell...literally! The educated young, both black and white, are leaving Greenville, the Delta, and not coming back...I don't blame them! The school system is a joke, a very sad joke! Ahh, home sweet home...
I had sworn off this thread because it's contentious. Your post doesn't seem to be argumentative so I'll reply. Greenville's situation has nothing to do with blacks being in 'control' or there finally being a black mayor in town, although that situation has brought in zero industry or anything else. There are only two (that I know of) towns in all of the delta which don't have a black mayor and majority black council.
I lived in Greenville from 1977 till 1992, fifteen years, and was during that entire time heavily involved in industrial recruitment. In 1989 the Greenville area had the distinction of producing the only Schwinn bicycle manufactured in the world, the top of the line LaZBoy office furniture, the country's preemminant rice manufacturing facility, the country's leadership in the riverboat industry, a fabulous brass tubing industry with zero tolerance customers such as musical instrument makers, a carpet manufacturer, one of the nation's leading multi-color box and packaging manufacturers....others I forget, but they dotted the landscape.
These places all came to Greenville and LEFT (one or two have survived) Greenville under all white city leadership. They came for tax abatements and left when the program expired, typically ten years later. Schwinn left Chicago for Greenville due to the union situation in Chicago. Two years later, they folded and left the country altogether for offshore economic reasons. We brought in Boeing Military Airplane Company and I doubt anybody has to be told what that opportunity represented. They left two years later when John Stennis retired from the senate. Coming to Greenville was political and leaving Greenville was political.
In the past four years I know of four born and bred Delta lawyers who have moved their families from Greenville to Jackson to escape the Delta. Any true Deltan can attest to the phenomenal rarity of a family like that pulling up stakes and leaving so much extended family in an area mired largely in poverty. When I left with my family, we considered it escape and I lived in the Delta for 45 years.
This morning's Clarion Ledger, the statewide newspaper, has an article about gangs in the Mississippi Delta, largely unheard of elsewhere in this state.
According to this article, the police said there were THIRTY gangs in Greenville, Mississippi TWO YEARS AGO. When we left in 1992, there were whispers of gang formation. We got out in time to get my kids the hell out of it and my wife out of the public school system she had taught in for 17 years. Greenville's (and the Delta's) is a slide toward hell that has continued for generations. Lord only knows what the result will be when one takes a look forty years hence.
Slice it by race if you like. You may be right. When the Greenville Air Force Base was closed in 1968 by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Greenville started it's 'handbasket to hell' slide and slid continually in that direction for the next 40 years, non-stop and almost without pause.
There is a huge entitlement mentality in that community. It's the third largest city in this state. Transfer payments (welfare, food stamps, medicaid, 'crazy checks', and similar monthly payments) are the largest source of income in the region. The work ethic is hugely dysfunctional. I know. I was in the "People For Jobs -Jobs For People" business (mantra) for 25 years. The school system is terribly and woefully inadequate with a series of poor leaders coming and going while building their state retirement entitlement (I know. I have one of those too).
I am not talking as a NON-DELTAN as you seemed to insinuate in your post. I lived in Cleveland from age 2 through 22 and in Greenville from age 30-45, with some time in Vicksburg as well (also a Delta village)for a total of somewhere near 45 years. That qualifies me to assess and comment. And it qualified me to escape as well.
God bless the Delta. It's where I learned to hit a baseball and where my daddy taught me to fish. It's where I had my first date and it's where I met both of my wives. The Delta holds a special place in my heart and I return regularly, but just to fish. Besides the danger, it's a place that to me is very depressing when I return. At one time I thought it was the best and only place on earth to live. Then something hit me between the eyes with a two by four.
Hi all. I've been browsing this thread, so as a non-native I thought I'd add my two cents.
I grew up in the Midwest, in south Michigan. I've also lived in Indiana for a few years (and I do currently).
However I visit the Delta frequently because I have family down there (Bolivar County to be exact). I never found race relations to be nearly as bad as everyone seems, and I think that most people are still feeding off played-out stereotypes. Compared to the Midwest it isn't all that different, actually.
As one who was an outsider to the gulf coast when she went down there right after Katrina, I have to say it's definitely a culture shock in relation to races. I stayed in the Delta for a year, in which I met a wide variety of people. While I loved everyone I met down there (a few noteable exceptions, but for the most part everyone is just real down to earth and nice), the racism that is ingrained in day to day living is sometimes so subtle you don't even recognize it for what it is. The people down there don't even see it either; I can quote a bunch of phrases I heard people say down there in relation to black people (many of which I'd never repeat personally) that me as a Californian just found rather offensive. If/Whenever you try and bring it up, however, you generally get the "I don't hate black people, I just hate n----s" justification, which is almost worse. I had one guy friend of mine tell me the town Kiln got its name from "kill n----s"; on two occasions I had to stop other guy friends from beating up a black man because he was simply there and they were drunk.
Don't get me started on what they think of interracial dating. You go just over the Louisiana border and it's a totally different world, but in Mississippi if a black man is dating a white woman both are liable to get threatened, or worse. I had more than one acquaintance say in conversation that he wouldn't date any woman if she'd had sex with a black man, and another who got severely chastized by his friends for even thinking about going to see a black *****. (yes folks, not everyone I hung out with was what you might call "respectable", but they were all natives)
I only got a taste of the coast, not of the rest of the state. Gulf coast Mississippi is definitely its own world and I know from talking with other Mississipians that it's by NO means anything close to an accurate representation of the state as a whole. But it's worth noting such places do exist, sad thought it may be.
[quote=ladyeclectic79;1911718]As one who was an outsider to the gulf coast when she went down there right after Katrina, I have to say it's definitely a culture shock in relation to races. I stayed in the Delta for a year. One of us is confused. The Mississippi Delta is over two hundred miles from the Gulf Coast and the damage visited upon our state by Katrina. Perhaps you were disoriented.
Whenever you try and bring it up, however, you generally get the "I don't hate black people, I just hate n----s" justification, which is almost worse. I had one guy friend of mine tell me the town Kiln got its name from "kill n----s"; on two occasions I had to stop other guy friends from beating up a black man because he was simply there and they were drunk. I've lived here all my life and have never heard that remark. You may not know that the word Kiln describes a heated furnace most notably used for firing brick or pottery. That is the derivation of the town's name. These were your 'friends'? Your 'friends' lied to you about the derivation of the name Kiln. Your friends who wanted to 'beat up a black man because he was simply there and they were drunk were simply mean people, nothing characteristic of the Mississippi Delta. The tragedy of Katrina and it's two year aftermath had nothing then or now to do with race. If you visited from California with that mindset, we would respectfully invite you to not return.
I only got a taste of the coast, not of the rest of the state. quote] I'm beginning to doubt the honesty of this entire post. You stated that you 'stayed in the Delta for a year' yet you got a taste of the coast, not the rest of the state. Based on your geographical inaccuracies and your choice of 'friends', you obviously wasted a year of your life.
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After thinking about this overnight,
