Jackson hasn`t accomplished much of late but has never been a real embarrassment outside of our state. That`s about to change in a major way. The national press is going to love this guy(they love all train wrecks). He may single handedly save the Clarion Ledger also with his daily antics.
Really? I live in New England and Jackson has a pretty horrible reputation up yonder. It's consistently up there on the list of highest homicides per capita.
I see where he's coming from - Columbus didn't 'discover' America, and he wasn't even the first European to make his way here.
However, there are a few things wrong with this entire picture:
1) The mayor of Jackson doesn't set curriculum for the public school system, even the one in Jackson. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the authority to order any changes to it. I could be wrong though.
2) Don't worry about all the drugs, prostitution, robberies, rape, underfunded and overworked public servants, and ****** streets. Let's make sure Columbus gets pulled from the JPS history curriculum first. You know, priorities 'n ****.
3) If you are sincere about trying to build consensus and govern fairly (which he says but I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean), shouldn't you take a step back from what will be perceived as uber-liberal-I-hate-Whitey rhetoric? Just sayin'.
This is probably an unpopular statement but I honestly think he could do some kind of good as mayor, obviously he'll do some bad due to him ignoring day-to-day issues that are pretty important, but on the social front he could be a shot in the arm for a key issue facing Jackson.
Jackson does have a problem of inner-city students skipping school and dropping out. If whatever this guy's name is can impact the young African-American culture in Jackson in a positive way, he's done some good. The Jackson public school system is awful, and maybe when he figures out he can't rewrite history books he'll focus on fixing the broken school systems.
While my teachers told us that Columbus discovered America in like 4th grade, history teachers as I got older and could actually comprehend expanded on that by saying he was the one who got America rolling and wasn't necessarily the first person here. Columbus Day though? Complete horseshit holiday.
Side note: There's no way some of that stuff written about Mississippi in the 80's is true... right? Maybe I'm ignorant because I'm young and went to Gulfport public schools all my life where African-Americans were the majority, but most of the racist bastards I know are cowards. I also take offense to him claiming white children were taught to be racist too. I didn't hear the n-word until I was in 8th grade and had to go home and ask my mom what it was and why the kid who said it at school got in such big trouble. Anyway, just my opinion, but we're not going to finally get over this crap when public figures keep bringing it up to generation after generation.