Once again, I’ve fallen behind on blog posts regarding life in the Delta. I’m not quite sure where to start in my attempt to capture these last few months. I’m putting effort into this one, so suffer with me, it may be lengthy…
Disclaimer: the following content may make you mad, make you cry, make you laugh, make you confused, etc. Not sure which combination is most likely, but I hope it makes you feel something.
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When you become a firsthand witness to inequality, in any regard, anger straps you in tightly and swallows you until you adjust to a new normal. I have become overly familiar with anger over the last six-eight months. Nearly everything about Mississippi and the state of the education system in the rural Deep South made (and still makes) me so angry. Â
 “Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” ― Malcolm X
I’m choosing to use my anger to build and not destroy. In order to build anything (whether a structure, a relationship, or even a cake), you have to assess your materials and/or ingredients first. So, below is some of what I’m working with, in no particular order.
 ***It’s important to note that I’m directing my anger at problems, not people.***
1. Adults: Personal gain. Too many people here are solely concerned with personal gain. I cannot count how many times a week I hear, “it’s all about our kids…we have to do what is best for the kids,” yet the decisions made by those in charge rarely reflect what is best for these kids who have already suffered greatly from this system. The hunger for power in my district is sickening. The children are not the problem. The adults are responsible for perpetuating inequality in the Delta. Now that I’m part of that group, how do I make decisions that reflect what is best for my students?
Education is not about personal gain. It is not about becoming a teacher, then becoming a principal, then conservator/superintendent, and working your way up to a position with the state department. It’s not about being #1 in the country for using some random education system enhancement tool to build student success. And it is certainly not about playing your cards right so you can form positive relationships with consulting firms around the state to land a high-paying job after retirement. IT IS ABOUT THE STUDENTS. It is ALL about the students. Nothing will change until the adults can collectively TAKE ACTION with students as their priority.
 It’s time to wake up.
2. The schools: the Delta is notorious for what has been termed segregation academies.
 “In the mid- to late fifties and into the sixties, many communities established so-called“segregation academies” rather than comply with the court-orders to integrate the public schools. This early “school choice” movement was an avenue for white families to abandon their local schools, leaving investment to dwindle in public education. Years on, many of these academies still exist and continue to keep white and black students separate in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Virginia.” --MSNBC
The diminutive fraction of white students in Delta public schools and the comparable fraction of black students in Delta private schools is overwhelming. At my current school, I have not even one white student. Not one. Where are all the white kids? They’re at Indianola Academy, which is historically a segregation academy. IA was organized in a matter of days in response to the 1969 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling that the desegregation plan adopted by the Indianola Municipal Separate School District was constitutionally defective. It is obvious that this hurried organization to move white kids to a private school was the result of action by white segregationists. I’m not making blind claims. I’ve done my research. Here are a few “fun” facts about Indianola Academy:
It originated as a segregation academy.
Planning for the school began in 1964 with funding from the White Citizens Council
For the 2009-2010 school year, according to the Private School Universe Survey, the school had 434 white students and 2 black students
As of 2012 tuition ranges from $3,795 to $5,080 per year depending on the grade level. This includes money for books and other fees.Â
Students at the IA, unlike students at public schools, are not required to take Mississippi state standardized tests.
White students in Indianola are being taught that their black peers are below them—not worthy in some way of receiving the “better” education. As a recently state-tested subject teacher, who has analyzed the MS English II state test over and over, I am convinced that this test was written to weed out the black kids. It’s hard. It’s really, really hard. Even I, a college-educated individual, struggle to understand how to possibly teach these kids to pass their state tests. The white kids don’t have to worry about state tests. Our black kids have become numbers, while our white kids witness the perpetuation of placing their black peers on a data wall. This makes me so angry. And it makes me even angrier that people in the Delta think this system is okay because that’s “simply the way it’s always been.”
 If you haven’t already read this article, check it out. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/in-southern-towns-segregation-academies-are-still-going-strong/266207/
 Ps: the student mentioned in the Atlantic article, Latoysha Brown, is one of the most capable and incredible humans I’ve ever met. She’ll be starting at Spelman College this fall. She has confronted a mass of odds against her to get to this point. I want to hear more about young people like her and less about Miley’s haircut and Beiber’s social habits…
3. My students still ask me if I live on the “white folks” side of town. There are train tracks that divide Indianola. One side is predominantly black, and the other, predominantly white. This is 2014 and the racial divide is, quite literally, still reflective of The Help (which was actually filmed down the road in Greenwood, MS…). I watched The Help with a few friends this past weekend. Though I had seen the movie numerous times, this viewing was different…because now I live in Mississippi. What I had seen portrayed in the movie before now existed in my own backyard.
This prompted me to drive around my town and document the differences between where the “white folks” live and where the “black folks” live. I don’t need to explain circumstances or whereabouts of these pictures. You can figure out which side of the tracks (literally) where each photo was taken…
4. There are restaurants in Indianola where my black students rarely, if ever, eat. Why? From my perspective, because they are black. I notice to a deeper degree every day how the color of my skin gives me more opportunities in this community (and obviously, in society as a whole). Many white folks I’ve met here pride themselves in “not being racist.” If there is anything I’ve learned from my experiences thus far in the Delta, there is an astronomical difference between not being racist and being anti-racist. In my opinion, it is much worse to passively allow white supremacy to swallow a community than it is to actively practice racism. Â
A few months ago I was eating at our local pizza place. I was getting some work done and enjoying my pizza when something hit me. I had my headphones in and I started observing everyone around me. A basketball game had just ended for students at Indianola Academy, so the restaurant was flooded with families—white families. There was ONE black family at the restaurant and they were sitting, quietly, at a corner table. I got sick to my stomach, threw away my pizza, and drove straight home. It really upset me. I hadn’t thought much about it until then. I had eaten at that restaurant at least a dozen times and I’d rarely seen black families sharing the same space. I felt comfortable eating there because my skin color matched that of other patrons.
5. Sexism: Yes, of course I’m going to bring this one up. Many people think I’m dramatic when I discuss issues of sexism in the Delta. Call it drama, unimportant, or not the real issue. Call it whatever you want. Sexism is rampant here. And I truly believe that sexism is the root of all oppression. Everything sizzles down to the differences between man and woman—between what is masculine and what is feminine. The way women are treated in the Delta is sexism at its finest. We have male teachers who physically and emotionally violate female students. How do our decision makers handle it? They do nothing. They scoot the issues under the rug like nothing ever happened. I’m not kidding. However, the moment a female staff member steps “out of line,” she is reprimanded and the situation makes it all the way to the conservator of the district.
Female students are expected to care for their siblings (young and old) when they are not at school, while male students are at football or basketball practice. I have a problem with the difference between, “I didn’t have time to do my homework because I had to take care of my three younger siblings while my mom worked the overnight shift,” and “I didn’t have time to do my homework because I didn’t get home from football practice until 9:00pm.” I’m angry because I hear our football coaches tell players not to “act like a bunch of girls.” That is why our male students think it’s okay to treat women however they please. These kids have been raised (like young people all over the world) to think that the feminine is below the masculine. We are teaching our children to throw women to the side, to treat them as the lesser—as the problem. Instead of addressing the men and their treatment of women in this community, we are teaching women how to strip themselves of anything desirable—confidence, integrity, inner beauty, aspirations, strength, etc.
We are teaching our children to keep their mouths shut and never stand up for themselves; to hate their bodies; to expect to have children by age twenty; to never experience the joy of self-confidence. We are teaching our children that the feminine is less powerful, beautiful, desirable, confident, and less successful. We are teaching our children, whether white, black, polka-dotted, or striped, that women belong in one sphere and men belong in the other, better, sphere. After all, Eve is the one who picked the bad apple and sin broke loose. Adam had nothing to do with it. It’s all her fault.
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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” –Martin Luther King Jr.
Water has slowly filled my lungs in recent months. I’m only now figuring out how to drain that water and use it to my advantage. I have always been told not to let anger drive me. I know I’ve had a tendency in the past to get worked up over things and let those emotions test me. But now the cards are exceptionally different. Though paradoxical, I’ve discovered that one of the only ways to keep on keepin’ on down here is to let my anger encourage my actions. There is validity in anger. There is validity in sadness. It is more than okay to have these feelings.
A house is less likely to receive severe water damage during a storm if the gutters have been cleaned, letting water flow through consistently. Living in the Mississippi Delta has presented a constant torrential downpour and only now am I taking time to clean out the gutters, letting the anger flow through instead of brewing into hate. There’s a difference between being filled with anger and being filled with hatred. Anger is fluid and hatred, stationary. It is only when you clog your perception with hatred that you lose the ability to see clearly. The rain is always going to come. Especially in Mississippi. It’s how well you take care of your gutters that really matters.
I know I seem incredibly pessimistic about my experience here. There are some incredibly terrible things going on in this part of our country but I assure you, my days in the Delta aren’t completely full of anger. There are many wonderful things about this place. And I would not still be here if it weren’t for these things. As challenging as this experience has been and will continue to be, I know I’m in the right place. Mississippi may have always been the last state on my list to bunker down in for a few years, but I’m glad I’m here.
As a recent college grad, I could be living the life with a decent salary in some really awesome city somewhere in the United States. A consulting firm, maybe? Or even graduate school. But I’m not. I’m living in a southern home with an incredible dog and a vegetable garden, and I’m surrounded by what will become lifelong friends. I teach young people that challenge me daily to think about why the world is the way it is and how I can work with others to make it better. The anger I feel is rooted in my love for these people, for this place, and for these problems. I’m grateful for anger because anger, like fire, has the potential to burn everything clean.
“But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” –Martin Luther King Jr.
