MINOR: Current politics pushes Mississippi two steps backward
Bill Waller’s administration said it best: “Rethink Mississippi.” For years, Mississippi has struggled with how to convey a better image, given its heavy deficit born of the Civil War and worsened by racial demagogues such as Theodore Bilbo, James K. Vardaman and buffoons like Ross Barnett.
Many whites have said we didn’t care what the rest of the country thought or said about us. However, as we saw recently when our two top state public officials took umbrage over North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue’s off-handed negative remark about Mississippi, you would have thought we had been deeply wounded. Both Gov. Phil Bryant and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves likely made brownie points with their base out of that, but if the two had merely ignored the offending words, the world would have never known.
Read more: djournal.com
6/7/12
Magnolia Tribune
