Tom Brokaw Presents a Sadly Familiar Picture of Life in the Deep South

[Herman Munster]

There is not a single movie theater in Jackson, Miss. This seems an outrageous contention, but the mayor ought to know.

Mayor Frank Melton, a black man, shares this distressing information with Tom Brokaw on “Separate and Unequal,” an NBC News special tomorrow night. Mr. Melton’s city is now 70 percent black. Poverty is rising.

The point the program makes is that four decades after Lanier, the local high school, was integrated and James Meredith was admitted as the first black student at the University of Mississippi, nothing much seems to have changed for poor blacks.

“Separate and Unequal” plops itself down in Jackson for eight months and follows a few young African-Americans through most of the 2005-6 academic year to see how they will fare in this culture of near-hopelessness. The results are largely distressing and sadly familiar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/arts/television/22brok.html

[jobycom]

1. Too much Reagan, too many years of conservative government

Just too hard to overcome. Reagan told the South they could be as racist as they wanted, and people like Charles Pickering and Trent Lott popped up to follow his bidding. I could write a book on how they did it, but I'm too tired. I'm waiting for the punchline, knowing the media will somehow blame liberal policies and ignore the facts that the liberal plans of the 60s were neve fully funded in Mississippi, and that backdoor segregation (lowering taxes so al the white kids could go to private schools--early version of school vouchers) desicated the public schools in Mississippi. Just like they ignore Reagan kicking off his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS, to let the South know he was the president who would respect the Civil Rights murderers who lived there.

[Erika]

2. The stench of racism still abounds in the South in the GOP

and the affects still are there. As Trent Lott said, he wished the racist, Strom Thurmond, had been elected as the president.

[nealmhughes]

3. Mississippi is its own "special" critter, like S.C.

Honestly, though, most of the down town theaters have probably closed, and there is not business there anyhow save the government and courthouse and its ancillaries, so to see movies, etc. people have to go to "oddly conveniently located near the city" malls... The same is true for Montgomery, except its city limits are large enough for a single non-mall theater to exist, The Cloverdale, in a neighborhood that is on the fringe of the old money neighborhood (Tallullah Bankhead and her cousin Zelda Fitzgearld grew up there) that is now popular with the academic crowd. There are two universities within walking distance of the theater.

The same is true for eating lunch: try to get a decent meal within walking distance of the state capitol in that city and you're going to the state office building cafeteria!