>

Wish more people would realize this. It’s really weird hearing people from the rest of the country smear the entire Deep South as a lost cause that should be wiped off the face of the earth only to then see those same people say black lives matter. Like bro where do you think a lot of those black lives are!??
The system has been broken for a long time:

Mississippi’s Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. >

a cardinal mistake in the American Experiment. >

Not doing away with the Lost Cause and seditionists through a coordinated national effort after the Civil War ended was a cardinal mistake in the American Experiment. >

Wouldn't the cardinal mistake be when the constitution was written? The founders never made equality a reality for black people, women, or the poor. >

I won't disagree with you on African Americans or women, intersection being Black women. But John Rutledge the slaveholding lawyer: 
"When the proposal was made that only landowners should have the right to vote, Rutledge opposed it perhaps more strongly than any other motion in the entire convention. He stated that making such a rule would divide the people into "haves" and "have nots", would create an undying resentment against landowners, and could do nothing but cause discord. He was supported by Benjamin Franklin, and the rule was not adopted."
The U.S. Constitution's requirements to hold federal office don't contain property requirements and all 3 branches' federal officials get a salary from the U.S. Treasury--IIRC the UK didn't even pay its MP's (members of Parliament) until 1911 (House of Lords veto abolished). There were poll taxes and property requirements to vote, but the USA was way ahead of Western Europe for White male "universal" suffrage (by 1860 all White male citizens could vote). >

But... this just highlights the truth of the original statement.  The concern wasn't the theft of political power from the poor, the concern was doing it in such an obvious manner that the disenfranchised poor would rise up against the land owners.  Instead they gave the appearance of political equality (one (white male) one vote) while putting other institutions in place (the electoral college, gerrymandering) to allow the wealthy to wield actual political power in less obvious ways.  They still wanted political power in the hands of landed wealth, just obfuscated to limit the risk of rebellion >


while putting other institutions in place (the electoral college, gerrymandering) to allow the wealthy to wield actual political power in less obvious ways

Even the SCOTUS is designed as a fundamentally regressive/conservative institution. 
The nature of lifelong appointments and interpreting law according to past actions enforces an inherently slow-moving branch of government.
Blocking change secures the established power. Ensuring consistency in interpreting the law that has previously benefited people in power also helps secure the established power. 
It's a whole song and dance of "we have always done it this way" which is great for the people at the top and continues leaving everybody else in the cold.
That's why rich people tend towards being conservative. They're securing their power. >

Conservatives should not be allowed to vote or hold public office. >

There is value to conservativism in the abstract. Conservativism is simply the notion of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." If you've been wearing shoes your whole life and see no reason to start wearing sandals instead, that's conservative.
Contemporary 21st century American "conservativism" is conservative in name only, it advocates for a lot of radical positions. Fascism is a distinctly right-wing ideology but one could argue that it is not conservative, as it is too focused on revolutionary strength, and the "conservative" movement in America resembles fascism far more than just, like, advocating caution. >

Fun fact: Mississippi was the last 1865 state to ratify the 13th Amendment. They did so in 2013. >

pretty sure they were still holding segregated high school proms are recent at the Obama administration 
~~MI~~ MISS is one of those states that needs to be dragged kicking & screaming into nearly every common decency >

*MS, not MI. >

wish i could say it was a typo or i hadn't had my coffee yet
but no, i told my brain "abbreviate mississippi" and my brain said "it's miss...but we can shorten that" 
indeed, to michigan apparently - thank you, you clever brain >

Tbf like 20% of our states start with M and I never realized how weird that was until I did the math… >

In case anybody needs the refresher:
MA- Massachusetts 
MD- Maryland 
ME- Maine
MI- Michigan
MN- Minnesota
MO- Missouri
MS- Mississippi 
MT- Montana
(I’m shocked I did that by memory.) >

Don't worry, we did it during Black History Month, therefore it isn't racist! >

Conservatives will look at you with a straight face and tell you systematic racism doesn't exist anymore. >

*nor did it ever. >

This is surely the policy that will drag mississippi up from being 50th in virtually every state-by-state measure of civilization and progress. >

Alabama is starting to sweat! >

Same here in Louisiana. We love Mississippi for not making us last in everything. >

Unfortunatelty, this won't be "only in Mississippi." I predict this will be more like "today in Mississippi," and tomorrow... who knows (besides people familiar with history, that is)? >

We already had this in Flint.  State came in to take over the finances, appointed a board without any voter input. They went for cheaper water supplies, but needed more chlorination because of the contamination.  The extra chlorination corroded the cities ancient water pipes, releasing unsafe levels of lead into the supply.  And thus we got the Flint water crisis. >

Someone should sue >

There definitely should be law suits over this.  Sadly, with this SCOTUS, doubt it'll be the outcome anyone who is not a complete piece of human garbage wants. >

Mississippi is the poorest state in the US.  If it was a country it would be one of the poorest in the northern hemisphere.  The state is a failure, its leadership is a failure. >

Failure implies its accidental. In reality it’s run by white conservative kleptocrats who want to make it as shitty and uneducated as possible to drive out blue voters and line their pockets by exploiting those too poor to leave. >

As someone who has lived in MS most of his life, this is it in a nutshell. 
Some highlights of this state include:


The highest incarceration rate in the country with one in thirteen people here having a felony conviction. Among black folks, specifically, that number is one in seven. Coincidentally (/s), we also have some of the strictest laws regarding felons being unable to vote.


Extreme corruption. Fleecing state funds, giving inflated government contracts to their friends, you name it, and it's done here. This entire state, both public and private sectors, is dominated by good ole boy networks. Any efforts to change usually get blocked by those same networks, necessitating that you work within it and become part of the problem to make any kind of progress.


As one of, if not the most Christian dominated states in the USA, it saturates everything here. Businesses that aren't country wide chains go out of their way to at least display some manner of Christian symbolism in view of their customers. Candidates that are not a part of a Christian denomination are doomed to fail even amongst Democratic party nominees. Social circles like the aforementioned good ole boy networks are formed around churches. Around here, if you don't go to church, it's a lot harder to meet and socialize with folks. >

Dixiecrats.
That's what the Republican party became in case you didn't know or never learned about the southern strategy. >

Too many people don't realize that ending slavery with the civil war was far from making them equal. They did everything they could down South to get Black people out of Political positions and keep Whites in control. There were at one point, areas that had a lot of Black legislators and they made sure to rectify that. All these statues people are trying to bring down were specifically made to show Black people they didn't belong and laws aside they were still the same South that believed they should still have slavery.
FTA-
'Even during the last years of Reconstruction, Democrats used paramilitary insurgents and other activists to disrupt and intimidate Republican freedman voters, including fraud at the polls and attacks on their leaders. The electoral violence culminated in the Democrats regaining control of the state legislatures and passing new constitutions and laws from 1890 to 1908 to disenfranchise most blacks and many poor whites. They also imposed Jim Crow, a combination of legal and informal segregation acts that made blacks second-class citizens, confirming their lack of political power through most of the southern United States. The social and economic systems of the Solid South were based on this structure, although the white Democrats retained all the Congressional seats apportioned for the total population of their states.'
Idk what the right approach would have been, but just because we 'won' the war, didn't change these people's opinions. They only complied where they absolutely had to, and made sure to find any way to keep Black people as second class citizens (and enslave them through the criminal 'justice' system of course). >

Mississippi GOP, providing examples of CRT daily. >

Sssh.  You're gonna trigger a GQPer. >

Seems like the Feds could get involved in a situation as blatantly racist as the State Courts, right? >

Before the Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, I'd say "yes."  Now, not so sure. >

White guy here, never understand how certain people and people in power claim racism and inequality aren’t an issue in this country anymore, wtf…. >

They benefit directly from it
You'll never get someone to understand something when their paycheck requires them not to >

Continued endemic racism. >

I wonder if they’ll make printing stories in the news like this illegal in Florida. >

There are many ways to sort out which states are truly horrible. Mississippi tops the list almost every time >

I live in Alabama, and you can tell you’ve driven into Mississippi when the road becomes akin to a dirt path. I don’t know how Mississippi manages to be worse than us. >

Our politicians know how to keep people quiet and put money into enough projects to keep Alabama just ahead of Mississippi.
You know that area in between Montgomery and Mobile? It's basically Mississippi. >

Yeah. I live between Monroeville and Evergreen, small area called Burnt Corn. I’m all too familiar with how bad it is lol >

I could’ve sworn I read about this in a history class once… >

Not if you live in Mississippi .. >

Fuck my state >

But it's not my cousin! /joking >

Color me not surprised.
My Dad has two female cousins who live in Jackson, Mississippi; both are very rich by Mississippi standards. One works for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (to comply with EPA regulations) and the other is an MD (as are her 2 daughters and late husband). They're both Asian Indians--driving 6 hours to Mississippi is just miles of forests, almost like pre-Industrial Germany. >

It’s not like Republicans are pretending they have respect for diversity or representative government any longer. >

They used to pretend? >

They made the correct mouth-noises, in imitation of human speech, to create the sound of being decent. Sometimes. >

I do not think they actually have ever done that. >

they did, it was just long ago; like 1978 I think it was... >

Mississippi votes to remain Mississippi. >

The problem is thinking this only happens in Mississippi >


Every legislative Republican is white

Mississippi is the blackest state in the union. This is such a revealing statistic.