“Stories shape the way we look at and perceive the world and help us to gain a shared perspective. That is especially true in Mississippi.”
So wrote Mississippi born author W. Ralph Eubanks, a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Mississippi Center for the Study Southern Culture. His essay was one of a series running in Mississippi Today.
He says he tells his students in Southern Studies, “Memory is not a passive repository of facts, but an active process of creating meaning about the past.
“Here in Mississippi, the interplay between the past and the present is always with us should we choose to engage with the varieties of ways in which we envision our history. This state has two magnificent museums to help us do just that, so we’re lucky. Still, active engagement with the past is what can help Mississippi move forward.”
Indeed, “Telling Our Stories: Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum,” published in 2017, highlights Mississippi stories captured in the two museums. Pursued and promoted by both liberal and conservative leaders in Mississippi, the two museums exemplify Eubanks’ message.
Recently, retired Mississippi Arts Commission director Malcolm White amplified that message: "We have a difficult history and story to tell. But on the positive side, we talk about it. We mention the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement in the same sentence. Mississippi has changed more than any state in the nation. We have come a long way."
Reared in Mt. Olive and a graduate of Ole Miss, Eubanks has delved deeply into and written extensively about Mississippi’s past. He adds this line to my opening quotation. “Yet here and throughout the South we also use narratives to obscure the truth.”
How true, especially in this day and age of social media and demonic politics.
Eubanks’ message resonated when Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted, “I will do everything in my power to make sure universal mail-in voting and no-excuse early voting are not allowed in Mississippi – not in Mississippi.”
This followed President Donald Trump raging against “corrupt” mail-in voting. Interestingly, Trump was all for “legal” mail-in voting in Arizona which benefitted him, just against “corrupt” mail-in voting in Pennsylvania and Georgia which did not.
Then came Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said, “If we don't do something about voting by mail, we are going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country."
No doubt mail-in ballots would not be a big story but for the impact on Trump’s re-election. The poorly obscured consternation here is that black voters are casting mail-in votes in higher than ever, difference-making numbers.
“I would never have thought we’d be where we’re at now, with blacks still fighting for the vote,” long-time civil rights activist Rev. Charles Johnson of Meridian told the Associated Press.
“The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see it diminished,” said President Ronald Reagan in 1982 as he extended the Voting Rights Act.
How sad to see Reagan’s narrative as the memory, the museum piece, rather than lingering fears over black voting.
“The truth will set you free” – John 8:32.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson
Kingfish note: Perhaps Mr. Crawford should look up "ballot harvesting" and "California."
16 comments:
Aka people see what they believe
I have amended my will to include specific instructions to my family.
"After I die please don't let me vote democrat."
I ONLY thought Mr. Crawford could not come up with a bigger load of crap than his prior ones.
Mississippi and politicians like Tate Reeves have always been on the wrong side of the bedrock of American democracy, The Right to Vote. Either they were outright denying half the state's citizens their right to vote using law or violence or they now decry efforts making the vote "too convenient" by early or mail-in voting. There must be fraud. Must be. Anything to limit the numbers IF it is shown that the numbers represent the "wrong" people. The numbers are starting to favor the Democrats so the Republicans must now become the party of "electoral integrity". Bull. But the Democrats would do the same if the shoe were on the other foot.
3:16 - I think you're getting the jump on prob 65. Can you explain how Tate Reeves has affected anyone's right to vote. And if you can remember his position on mail in voting, please restate it. "Using law and violence" to affect voting? Dayum! Tate did that too?
Some people would rather climb a tree backward and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.
Bill Crawford is as loony as the late Bill Minor. Just write a liberal column of claptrap nonsense every week and you get praised by the far left.
"they were outright denying half the state's citizens their right to vote using law or violence "
Please site one example of both allegations.
I'm really interested with any facts that you can produce about violence at Mississippi polling locations.
I have lost track of where I found this newspaper clip but it is very enlightening
http://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/images/213.gif
Mississippians were proud to assert their defiance of a federal law against lynching it seems
Well maintained and updated voter rolls, mail out of ballots to those that request them only, ballots having watermarks and or other markings difficult to duplicate, and matching signatures, then we can talk mail in ballots. Mailing out ballots to everyone on the rolls is a disaster, as is ballot harvesting which is legal in California and is being pushed nationally by Democrats.
Has anyone in Mississippi started a people's initiative for early voting? That would solve the mail-in problems.
Two points: (1) someone please give me a specific example of where a qualified black voter was denied their right to cast a legitimate ballot for this past election; (2) remembering the past is one thing, but here in Mississippi we seem to wallow in it; wear it around our neck like a scarlet letter; are constantly apologizing for it. We will never make much progress moving forward if we are constantly looking backward to see where we have been.
In all things racial Mississippi has a tradition of giving with one hand while taking away surreptitiously with the other. Encouraging 'those' barefooted poor the opportunity to pull themselves up by their boot straps and giving them all new boots seems so generous but we can rest assured that all the boots will be patent leather size 6-A.
It's astounding that those who claim to be conservative are arguing against State's rights and a stronger central government when it comes to voting.
That each county,district and State has control over elections is, to this old conservative, a strength not a weakness. The larger and more complex the system, the more opportunity there is for loopholes and breakdowns. The nearer control is to you, the citizen, the better.
Worse, you are arguing against individual freedom and the sanctity of one man/one vote and individual responsibility. You are assuming other citizens ,unlike you, wouldn't take care in making sure their vote counted. For example, you assume that with "harvesting" in other States, the voter wouldn't designate someone they trusted. Even if they did choose poorly, it'd be their vote lost, wouldn't it?
As for voting, it's more than clear that most of you have never volunteered to work at the polls or know anything about the efforts made to insure your vote in this State. And, you certainly haven't read the rules governing the vote in other States.
The notion that we have to " mind everyone else's business" and " there's only my way that's the right way" is incompatible with our form of government which is about individual freedom limited only by harming others.You focus on the problems in other communities and other States as some bellwether while ignoring our problems here. Use your energy in your own backyards!
The hypocrisy of those of you wanting to control voting of citizens in other States while refusing to wear a mask or have gun laws based on " individual rights" is glaring.
Your philosophies and ethics are obviously convenient and situational. What you really are arguing for is absolute conformity. There have been others like you in history who , to their nationalistic horror, discovered the thousands of ways they didn't imagine they'd have to conform to a far more rigid set of rules than the grand generalities they embraced that sounded " great". "Make ( fill in the country) Great Again" is a very old slogan gear to tap into nostalgia for an idealize past. Look it up!
Spot on 9:22. Tate was wrong on the Flag. He was wrong on medical marijuana. He is wrong on early voting. He knows it, but he panders anyway.
I read it but don't think I learned one damned thing. But, I am reminded that one sentence does not a paragraph make.
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