Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the southern United States. Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union on December 20, 1817. When Mississippi became a state its economy was primarily agricultural until after the Depression of the 1930s. Cotton was king, and Mississippi had large agricultural plantations. Meanwhile, the Mississippi plantation owners became wealthy because of cotton and their large ownership of African-American slaves. In Mississippi during the 1850s there were almost 800.000 African-Americans with fewer than 1,000 of them free. The African-American slave laborers had to work the land from sun-up to sun-down. Also during the 1800s, there were many small rural white-owned farms throughout Mississippi. The rural white farm owners had large families to work the land. Furthermore, the African-American slave laborers and the rural white farm families were uneducated with virtually no skills for upward mobility. In addition, there was a severe wealth imbalance between the white plantation owners and the rural white farm owners. Even though the above information is focused on Mississippi, the same can be said about almost all southern states during this period of time.
Today Mississippi has the lowest per capita income in the nation. The South, as a region, has 8 of the 11 lowest per capita income states. In 2007, the US Census Bureau indicated Mississippi was the poorest state in the country. In 2007, Mississippi’s median household income was $36,338, which was $31,372 below Maryland, which was the wealthiest state. In 2008 Mississippi was ranked last in academic achievement among the fifty states. Meanwhile, in 2007, Mississippi students scored the lowest of any state on the National Assessments of Educational Progress in both math and science. The southern states’ secondary education systems continually rank at the bottom nationally. These low academic achievements and low income levels in Mississippi (and most other states in the South) contribute to negative stereotypes applied to all southern states. The most prevalent types of stereotyping are racial and ethnic, sexual, and gender. In the 1800s the most common stereotyping in our country was depicting African-Americans as dumb, lazy, poor, and uncivilized. The original colonists believed that African-Americans were inferior to white people. This helped to justify slavery and the many laws that were put in place that condoned inhumane treatment to keep African-Americans in a lower socioeconomic position.
Southerners are depicted as lazy, racist, uneducated, and bigoted. These kinds of southern stereotypes are perpetuated by Hollywood, media, and academia. While growing up in the South, I went to segregated public middle class schools and never saw other students as lazy and uneducated, but there were regions in the South, such as small rural towns, farming areas, and African-American communities, that I never came in contact with, so I had no perception of these peoples’ lives and experiences. In fact, the people living in some of these areas are sometimes referred to as “Rednecks.” Redneck is a derogatory slang term used to depict poor white southerners. Redneck men consider their women helpless, subservient, and stupid. Today the term Redneck is also used to depict people who are opposed to modern ways such as southern conservatives and segregationists. George Wallace (Alabama governor), Jesse Helms (U.S. senator North Carolina), and Strom Thurmond (U.S. senator South Carolina) were bigots and racists during their early political careers, but changed their outlook as the racial tone changed in the country. Strom Thurmond had an African-American daughter. Despite their change in outlook, they are nevertheless still known as “typical Southern white bigots.” The South has always been a place where “white privilege” was important. While my father was an alcoholic, he never was arrested for driving under the influence because he knew the mayor, the judges, the police chief and most of the police officers. He was immune to a DUI because of the “good ole boy” system.
The South has traditionally been characterized as racist, due in large part to segregation. On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court in Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka declared unanimously (9-0) that state laws establishing separate public schools for African-American and white students and denying African-American children equal educational opportunities were unconstitutional. During the 1960s several major public universities in the South (University of Mississippi and University of Alabama) were racially integrated through the use of force by the federal government. The first two public universities in our country were the University of North Carolina (1789) and the University of Georgia (1801) but they did not become truly public until the 1950s/1960s when racial integration was ordered by the federal courts. By 1961, only South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi still maintained completely segregated school systems even though the U.S. Supreme Court had declared this unconstitutional in 1954. These three states school systems were successfully integrated by 1970. The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African-Americans. This law requires Mississippi, along with many other southern states, to get approval from the U.S. Department of Justice for any change affecting voting, a process known as preclearance.
Despite the negative southern stereotype of racism, the first state to elect an African-American governor was the southern state of Virginia in 1989. Many southerners are depicted as undereducated, but three of the last six U.S. presidents—Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—were from the South. They graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Georgetown University, and Yale University, respectively. In fact, Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar. Stereotyping can lead to prejudice and bigotry and, if left unchecked, can lead to discrimination, violence, and in extreme cases to genocide. During World War II genocide by the German government led to the death of approximately six million Jews.
Discussion of the Topic in Film/Movie
Stereotyping disguised as “comic relief” is used throughout “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” to depict the depression era of the 1930s. The stereotypes perpetuated in the movie are said to be from a bygone era, but are they really from the past? As a serious-minded person, it is difficult for me to appreciate this film as a comedy. I don’t like the movie because it makes fun of southerners and the South. The film’s setting is the U.S. state of Mississippi. It begins with a scene where chain-gang prisoners in striped uniforms are doing work in a public area. In a later scene in the movie the chain-gang prisoners are in their striped uniforms taking in a film at the local movie house. Prisoners doing work or at play in public only happens in the South. Another scene shows the Ku Klux Klan in action with a cross, a hangman’s noose, and an African-American which will stir up racism and bigotry in the minds of many movie goers. Meanwhile the film depicts Delmar and Pete as limited minded Rednecks who can only get by with the help of Everett Ulysses McGill, their leader and smart guy. Where else but in the South could you see a religious baptism happening on a river bank as seen in the film. Throughout the movie “ole boy” cronyism is alive and well. This stereotype was invented in the South but it is known as “networking” in the rest of the country.
Connect the Topic, the Film/Movie, and the Odyssey
In the South, a Redneck man views a woman as dumb. In contrast to the Redneck male’s view of a woman, the main female character, Penny, in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is quite crafty and smart in finding herself another man to support her while her husband, Everett Ulysses McGill, is away in jail. Unlike the southern stereotypical woman who is often depicted as helpless, Kalypso and Kirke in the Odyssey play a positive role in liberating and educating Odysseus. Athena, the grey-eyed goddess, is always looking after Telemakhos and Odysseus by disguising them at the most opportune time. Athena, Kalypso, and Kirke are all goddesses who are very skilled at getting the job done by any means necessary. These three females are all intelligent and independent. While Odysseus is away on his twenty year adventure, he is the typical married male having sex/making love with Kalypso and Kirke, but Penelope is the faithful wife even though she has many suitors lusting for her status, her money, and her sexual favors. Without a doubt, Odysseus is the stereotypical hero in the Odyssey. He is smart, strong, athletic, cunning, persuasive, good looking, and quick thinking. His escape from the cave by getting the Kyklops, Polyphemos, drunk and shoving a red-hot wooden staff into his eye is an example of Odysseus’ intelligence, quick thinking, and strength. He is the only one of his group of warriors to successfully make the journey home to Ithaka. As usual the hero has a lovely wife, Penelope, who is beautiful and intelligent. The hero always has a happy ending. Homer creates and perpetuates stereotypes in the poem for the purpose of making Greek values seem like they are the best values (the way Southerners have traditionally insisted that “white is right”).
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