By George Wilson | Mississippi is the poorest state in the United States, with 24.1 percent or 695,915 of its citizens living below the poverty line. It also ranks last in its rate of child poverty (33.7 percent), and subsequently last in hunger and food insecurity.
The South needs to examine its history, if it wants to continue to be prosperous. For a hundred years after the Civil War, the south was a third-world country. American business was loathe to make investments in the old Confederacy because of lynchings, segregation, and the anti-evolution laws prevalent in the South. It was only after the Civil Rights movement of the sixties that business was ready to invest in the South.
If this Southern religious crusade against gay people continues, the South will not be part of the new tech economy of the 21st century. Moreover, the South lags the rest of the country in some significant quality of life measures, such as educational level, per-capita income, infant mortality, etc.
In 2014 the four states with the highest murder rate were Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and South Carolina, with Alabama and Georgia also in the top ten. Of the ten states with the lowest life expectancy, all but Oklahoma are in the South. The states that consume the most junk food are Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. The list could go on and on.
This gay controversy is just a cover for another issue: the unending insistence of Southern states to snub federal laws. Others include segregation labeled as “states rights;” suppressing voting (the true “voter fraud”); trying to sabotage national health care; and this current rebellion against the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage.
These all are expressions of the Confederacy still raging against its defeat 150 years ago. We should just let go and move on.
Georgia should take economic advantage of the states that have passed these discriminatory laws and try to recruit businesses like PayPal that pulled out of an investment in North Carolina. Finally, Charlotte lost 400 jobs and $3.6 million in PayPal’s investments; I say welcome them to Gwinnett County.
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