Part of our mission here at Rooted is to carve out a space—for Mississippians and non-Mississippians alike—to have nuanced conversations about what it means to live in and/or want the best for our state. Nuance is the operative term here, something sorely lacking from social media these days, especially when bad news from the South wafts into the mainstream discourse.
As someone who thinks deeply about Mississippi history, culture, and politics on a daily basis, I get whiplash when I log on to Twitter and, out of the blue, someone who has never been here is calling for the South to “secede already” or wondering aloud why anyone in their right mind would choose to live here.
My friend Ellen Ann Fentress (whose brilliant collection of essays is forthcoming) coined the term “knee jerk red state haters” to describe these smug blue state dwellers who use the South as a scapegoat or a bogeyman for the social ills that plague our entire country. It’s an apt term, because by hating states, the knee jerk red state haters effectively erase all the actual people who live within these states, including those working to dismantle the same systems they claim to hate.
The red state hater Twitter brigade was out in full effect recently when the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two young African American Democrats—Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones—who spoke out against gun violence inside the state capitol alongside their white colleague Gloria Johnson. “The Tennessee Three,” as they soon became known, were calling for common sense gun control in response to the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, in which an emotionally disturbed person armed with a legal AR-15 killed six people, including three children. Protestors—many of them students—flocked to the capitol, calling for action. The Tennessee Three rose to the occasion. And then Republicans expelled only the two Black legislators...for breaking decorum.
The night of the expulsion, I stayed up late—too late—scrolling and refreshing Twitter, watching videos of the protests and of Jones and Pearson speaking truth to power. I was filled with a mixture of horror and hope. Horror at how quickly and easily the illusion of democracy was broken, and hope that a tipping point had been reached, that people were standing up and demanding change.
“The world is watching Tennessee,” Jones said in a statement to his colleagues ahead of their vote on his expulsion. “We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy.”
I cried watching those videos, overwhelmed by a cascade of emotion, yet buoyed by the bravery of the Tennessee Three, by the sight of protestors filling their capitol like a tidal wave, calling for an end to senseless murder and the passing of common sense gun control. Anyone watching the spectacle in Tennessee would see the corruption, ineptitude, and racism baked into these systems of political power. But they would also see the people fighting these systems, fighting for a better future for the South and for America. How could they not?
The truth is, the red state haters don’t care enough to hold these two truths simultaneously. They imagine that America’s problems would be solved if only the South were amputated from the rest of the country like a gangrenous limb.
As contributor William Ferris notes, Mississippi is “a microcosm of both our nation’s problems and their solutions. The long, tragic struggle to overcome racism and poverty in Mississippi is a story that is common in every state in the nation.” Living in the South means having to contend with contradiction at every turn, like piecing together a collage with all the good, bad, ugly, and beautiful overlapping.
My tolerance for social media is dwindling by the day, mostly because I can’t bear the cynicism, the boiled-down binaries, the people whittled into caricatures. More and more I turn to the words of deep-thinking Southerners, including those complex and interesting Mississippians featured in this magazine, who don’t shy away from the messy truth at the heart of the matter. I don’t have time for the haters—we’ve got bigger problems to worry about.
If you’re just joining us, be sure to catch up on our April contributor issues.
Lee Durkee writes about coming home to Mississippi after living in Vermont for 18 years, and about the perils of Mississippi’s segregated education system. By the way, Lee’s new memoir Stalking Shakespeare is out now.
Jackson transplant Ashlee Kelly describes the challenges of living in a city with dire infrastructure issues, while also wanting to be “part of the solution.”
In her personal essay “Girls Like Us,” Millsaps senior Victoria Richard writes about how Eudora Welty set an example of a life she wanted for herself, one full of intellectual independence and defying social expectations.
Acclaimed Southern folklorist and Mississippi expat William Ferris, reflects on the ways Mississippi shaped him--culturally, professionally, and spiritually. His interview includes a stellar line-up of his favorite Mississippi artists, writers, and musicians.
Mississippi native Dyamone White writes about what inspired her to run for office in District 63 and what she hopes to accomplish should she be elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Yeah, social media has fallen far from the social aspect and fully embraced the thrill and rush of the reactions, the outrage, the surface level nonsense. There's no room for nuance, becoming nothing more than an outlet of our worst behaviors. Can't help but think that bleeds over into the rest of our lives as well.