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No Apologies, No Excuses for Racist Symbols
I
hadn’t been a resident very long the first time I ever stood on the steps of the Mississippi state capitol. As a Jackson State University student, I was asked to speak at a rally where we were pushing for the state to reopen closed murder cases from the civil rights era. I took the microphone and read off the names of people who were connected to the deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, yet still walking free in Philadelphia, Miss. I said something about it being time for justice, and then I remembered a conversation my then-70-year-old father and I had before I came to Mississippi. I shared this story with the people gathered: “When I told my father I received a scholarship to JSU, he asked me, ‘Why would you choose to go there after I spent my life trying to get away from the south and that way of thinking?’ “Of course, I told my father how the south is different and things have changed. Yet, as I stand here today and look up and see our state flag, I realize I’m speaking under a symbol of racism and oppression. So I guess he was right. Things haven’t changed too much.� Mississippi recently broke ground on a new civil rights museum. It is beyond past due. At the ground-breaking, JFP photographer Trip Burns captured a great photo of Myrlie Evers-Williams speaking under our state flag. That image brought back that memory for me. I had to wonder if Ms. Evers-Williams was thinking something similar. I know people want to believe the flag doesn’t matter. But it does. A government chooses its symbols to represent its values. What does the Confederate emblem say about ours? Recently on social media I’ve read a lot of conversation about the state flag and, because of Halloween, white people wearing blackface. A theme kept emerging—that good white people with good hearts and good intentions shouldn’t have to give up their flag or wearing a costume they like because some people (sensitive minorities) are offended. I want those “good white people� to understand how that sounds to most of the people of color in your lives. That you don’t care about others enough to listen to our pain or give up these painful symbols that hurt us, so please kiss off. Here’s the thing: Your good feelings toward the people of color in your lives aren’t enough. If you say you are for equality and against racism, then you should be against racist symbols and symbolism. No apologies, no excuses. This isn’t about who is a bad person and who isn’t. This is about challenging racism. When it comes to that battle, either you walk your talk, or you don’t.
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November 13 - 19, 2013
°5 3 %NERGY 3ECRETARY %RNEST -ONIZ DESCRIBING THE +EMPER #OUNTY POWER PLANT UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN EAST -ISSISSIPPI
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Why it stinks: The long-range environmental and cost-saving benefits of the way-over-budget, 582-megawatt Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle have been hotly debated since the project’s inception. So let’s put all that aside for now. The main reason Moniz’s claim falls flat is that Southern Co., MPC’s parent, has said that Kemper is not the plant of the future. In fact, a corporate spokesperson told Reuters in September that Kemper IGCC “cannot be consistently replicated on a national level, the Kemper County Energy Facility should not serve as a primary basis for new emissions standards impacting all new coal-fired power plants.�
Please, Help Us Get Serious About Transparency
A
s City Reporter Tyler Cleveland frustratedly reports in this issue and in previous weeks, the quasi-public yet clandestine Jackson Redevelopment Authority has a tendency to recess into executive session when it only has one or two items on its once-a-month agenda. Similarly, the Hinds County Board of Supervisors also likes to recess into executive session, according to the board agendas, to discuss legal and personnel matters and land acquisition, usually related to the Byram-Clinton Parkway development project. In principle, there is nothing nefarious about a government body meeting in closed-door executive session. Personnel issues and legal questions can be complicated, messy and scandalous affairs that, if aired in a public meeting where the news media are present, could open up public-relations and litigation Pandora’s boxes for the agencies involved. But far too often in Mississippi, government agencies (mis)use executive session to do things they just don’t want the public to know about. That certainly appears to be the case for JRA, which doles out millions of dollars worth of taxpayer funds based on conversations that take place largely in private. Certain Hinds County board members like to use executive session to launch political hit jobs on insufficiently deferential county employees. They go into executive session, wait until the chancery court boardroom is empty and then announce the latest department firing. The scope of Mississippi’s transparency prob-
lem extends far beyond local board chambers, however. For example, to obtain photocopies of documents at the office of Hinds County Circuit Clerk Barbara Dunn, citizens are required to fork over $1 per page. This sum might be reasonable if getting copies meant that an overburdened and underpaid clerk had to do the work. At Dunn’s office, people make the copies themselves. On the statewide level, representatives of various offices capriciously decide who gets access to public information. Mick Bullock, Gov. Phil Bryant’s press person, has refused to add the Jackson Free Press to media distribution lists (too bad for Bullock, our media colleagues share the public information with JFP) and Pamela Weaver, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann’s gatekeeper, once said she would only accept emailed questions from our organization, which is against our code of ethics. The national nonprofit Sunshine Review gave Mississippi a grade of C for transparency in 2013. We are offended not only because it makes our jobs as news reporters more difficult, but because public information is public property. Denying access to public information is tantamount to stealing public property. The JFP has raised hell about officials’ flagrant flaunting of transparency, and will continue to do so. Now, citizens—the taxpayers to whom this property rightfully belongs—should also demand accountability. We promise to keep fighting right alongside you for your right to know.
Email letters and opinion to letters@jacksonfreepress.com, fax to 601-510-9019 or mail to 125 South Congress Street, Suite 1324, Jackson, Mississippi 39201. Include daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, as well as factchecked.