Mississippi is 50th in the nation in both per-capita income ($21,036) and median household income ($39,680). Our state needs every positive factor we can find in trying to appeal to industries and potential residents as they consider their options. Aside from a workforce that can be guaranteed to work for low wages and a state government that must resort to bribery to lure businesses to our state, there are few real incentives.
It’s an uphill climb. It has always been an uphill climb. Our job growth rate has stalled — only a net of 800 more jobs were created in 2016 than the previous year, according to labor statistics. The national economy is prospering. Our economy is foundering.
And yet, even as we try to conjure up new reasons why companies should come here, we stubbornly cling to imagery that creates a negative perception of our state as backwards, regressive and, in the eyes of many, institutionally racist.
Relics of our past — the Confederate imagery on our state flag, the governor’s annual proclamation of April as “Confederate Heritage Month” and Monday’s “Confederate Memorial Day,” confirm the very stereotypes our state must escape. Mississippians are free to draw their own conclusion about the propriety of maintaining these traditions, of course. But the time has far since passed that the state should give its sanction to these ideas.
• The Commercial Dispatch, Columbus.
