The Land of Dreams...If You're White. And Wealthy. And Educated.

"To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi." - William Faulkner 

This comes as no surprise to any of you, but Mississippi, as a whole, is poor. And unhealthy. And uneducated. And nothing more than a landmass (if you don't know why that's funny, search "The Landmass Between NOLA and Mobile" and you'll understand). And all of that is frustrating because, compared to the rest of the country, Mississippi seems to be forgotten despite the fact they need a lot of help. 

Don't know why they need help? Here is why:

(These statistics came from the Mississippi Delta Project, A Portrait of Mississippi: Mississippi Human Development Report 2009, and America After 3pm) 

1. Mississippi's high school graduation rate is 61%, lower than the national average. The county in which I work is one of the top five counties in the state with the highest dropout rate. 

2. Mississippi has approximately 168,000 high school dropouts on Medicaid. This costs the state more than $208 million a year. 

3. In 2009, a survey conducted found that 25% of K-12 children supervise themselves after school. They are without adult supervision, on average, 9 hours a week. 

4. Mississippians living in Panola & Coahoma counties (I work in Panola) live like the average American lived in 1975.

5. In Mississippi, the white residents that are the worst off are still better off than the vast majority of African American residents. 

6. The infant mortality rate for nonwhites in Mississippi is nearly two times higher than the overall rate for the United States. In some counties it is three times higher. That is comparable to Libya and Thailand. 

7. In the Delta, the average Mississippian earns less than $19,000 a year. 

8. In Mississippi, the average white resident outlives the average African American resident by four years and earns an average of $10,000 more per year.  

9. Mississippi ranks in the top five of states with the highest teen births. 

10. Last, but not least - my personal favorite: Mississippi is spending twice as much per prisoner as it it on education per schoolchild.   

So there you have it. The state in which I am living and working to make a better place. The odds are against me in almost every way possible, but I suppose it wouldn't be fun if it was easy. That is what I am going to keep telling myself. Just go with it. 

If anyone has suggestions, pass them my way. Words of encouragement? I'll take 'em. If you're going to hate on Mississippi (especially if you've never been here), keep it to yourself. I need solutions, not uneducated opinions. With that said, I will leave you with this because I like it...

"A child born to a black mother in a state like Mississippi has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for." -Thurgood Marshall