Racism in Mississippi: an outside view

From the outside looking in, Mississippi appears to be evolving more slowly than other states in the area of race relations.

Some say this slow journey toward acceptance may just be a stereotype; others blame the state’s history. USM professor of black studies, Curtis Austin, says the media could be weighing the state down.

“The media, from news and radio to TV and the film industry, has falsely depicted Mississippi as this racist backwater where social issues remain unchanged since the time of slavery and segregation,” he said. “This is not to say we live in a racial paradise because we obviously and clearly have our racial problems to solve. It is, however, to say that race is much more a national phenomenon than it is a Mississippi or southern phenomenon.”

But freshman Kira Wayman from North Carolina sees a difference between here and her home state.

“I think here there tends to be a more ... self-imposed sort of segregation,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but people seem to automatically keep to themselves; not so much back home.”

Wayman said a notable difference is Mississippi organizations dedicated to specific races. Listing the Chinese Student Association, the Indian Student Association and other examples, Wayman said these groups puzzle her.

“I was pretty surprised about how much attention people pay to [race] through these organizations,” she said. “I think these groups actually hinder any concept of integration rather than help it. By drawing attention to race by having these groups, you encourage people to use it as an identifying factor, rather than encouraging people to move past it and find their identities in something more genuine and less superficial.”

But Austin, who has traveled to roughly 100 other campuses, said other schools around the nation resemble USM in this occurrence.

“I find campuses in other states much the same as USM’s,” Austin said. “Many campuses that I visit are openly hostile to blacks; no one can say that about USM. On the other hand, many campuses have a more welcoming and supportive atmosphere of minorities, and USM can learn from these places. I think, ultimately, it is up to the student body to determine what kind of atmosphere will prevail on any given campus, and that includes our beloved Southern Miss.”

Supporting Austin’s analysis, junior Eyslyn Hunte of Mobile, Ala. suggested that acceptance has not yet completely enveloped the Southern Miss atmosphere.

“I kind of feel like I’ve experienced more racism with kids our own age since being here,” she said.

Hunt cited Greek life as one of the most apparent areas.

The unofficially segregated Greek system, however, is not specific to Mississippi. A freshman at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Mitch Miller, said he sees this on his campus.

“There are ‘multicultural’ frats, that basically mean the black frats, and the majority of the social frats are all white.”

Miller added that though racial division does exist in Texas, most don’t quickly associate it with his state. Miller also said he is familiar with Mississippi’s racist stereotype.

“It is not as bad as it once was, but I think that there is a visible distinction,” he said.

Junior John Hart, a student at the University of Pittsburgh who grew up in Mandeville, La., pointed to the visibility of the segregation as well.

Referring to the South, Hart said, “Their obviousness and blatant disliking of another race is very visible. It’s very prevalent compared to up in the North where it’s a little more discreet. It’s not completely gone ... It’s more under-the-table.”

Hart added that Mississippi’s history doesn’t help the stereotypes.

“Mississippi has a really harsh history to back it up,” he said. “Pitt doesn’t have that. It still has racism; it just doesn’t get national attention.”

To shake the misconceptions that history burdens on the state, president of Cirlot advertising and public relations firm Rick Looser created a campaign called “Mississippi, Believe It!”

“There’s no doubt that Mississippi was its own worst enemy and all those things happened, but they happened 60 years ago, and we have changed and grown and learned,” he said.

Looser began his campaign after a conversation he had with a 12-year-old boy on an airplane. When Looser told the boy he was from Mississippi, the boy asked if Looser saw the Ku Klux Klan often and if he hated black people. The boy said he had learned about these things in his history class and also seen movies about the racism of Mississippi.

“This kid was born in the ‘90s,” Looser said. “And it struck me that this was kind of the next generation, and these were their thoughts about Mississippi.”

Looser agrees with Austin about the unofficial segregation that students associate with the South, believing that “we are a mirror image of the United States of America,” he said.

“I don’t dispute that there is still segregation, but it has nothing to do with segregation of the ‘50s and ‘60s. I think it’s the same kind of social segregation you see in any campus in the country. It’s not the powers that be saying, ‘You may not interact. Here is your place in this room. Here is your water fountain, and here’s yours.’ It is a choice.”

But if Mississippi does tackle this image that hinders a reputation of complete acceptance and understanding between races, Austin said this state especially could gain great respect.

And Austin offers advice on how to conquer this racial division and reach this ultimate level of equality.

“What we, both blacks and whites, have to do is be willing to face the truth and then be willing to reconcile after that truth is made known,” he said. “However, as long we pretend that we live in some kind of fantasy world now being labeled as a post-racial society based on the election of a half-white president, we will continue to fool ourselves.”