Race in Mississippi

Racism in Mississippi did not present itself to me in the overt way that I had expected. All of the people I worked with and interacted with were deeply regretful of Mississippi’s past and expressed the desire to have a continually more cohesive future. Many made the point that the state of Mississippi has seen greater change in race-relations in the last 50 years than any other state in the U.S. Many consider other states’ finger-pointing at racial-inequity in Mississippi as a means to deflect attention from their own racial injustices. Some don’t see Mississippi as any more racist than other places in the world, they see it as merely a state with a terrible history of racial discrimination.

I cannot say that Mississippi is more racist than anywhere else I have been especially given Australia’s past and present discrimination of Aboriginal Australians. However, I have never seen such clearly racially segregated living as I did in Cleveland. 

A train used to run through the centre of Downtown Cleveland, cutting it in half. Though the train no longer passes through Cleveland its divisive quality remains.  On one side of Cleveland is (with perhaps a few exceptions) the white population who live predominately in affluent to middle class housing. 

On the other side of the tracks, in East Cleveland, it is a whole different world. Here virtually everyone is black and while there are upper and lower middle class houses, the majority of the area is defined by poverty.

As I walked through the area it became very obvious that white people rarely venture this way.  Shouts of “Hey white girl!”, “What you doin’ white girl?”, “What you looking for? You want a ride?” greeted me everywhere I went. I had never before felt so conspicuous and guilty for my 'whiteness' as I did that day. Though I did attract those shouts and some suspicious glances, everyone in the area spoke to me with typical Southern charm. I met a fascinating man who had grown up picking cotton on his grandfather’s farm in Cleveland. We sat talking in Mississippi’s sweltering heat and learnt a bit about each others lives, Sydney was as interesting for him as Mississippi was for me.

After leaving East Cleveland I never really saw the area in the same way again. It is very easy working downtown, living with scholars and interacting with locals of similar economic status to completely miss the cycle of poverty and disadvantage that still rules Cleveland, and probably a lot of Mississippi. 

Mississippi in a lot of ways is no more inequitable than many other places in the world, my two homes, Sydney and Durham included. Seeing such inequality through my ‘outsider’ eyes highlighted for me just how easy it is to pass over entrenched racism in our everyday lives. My Community Summer then, taught me not only to open my eyes to Mississippi, but also to a different and more perceptive way of thinking and seeing the world I am in.

Communal Living

Now as interesting and important as Mississippi is, one of the key parts of Community Summer is living with other scholars. Though most people have a roommate freshman year, there is something very different about living with around 7 people for 8 weeks straight. For only-child, small-family me, constantly interacting with so many people was both unusual and fun.

There were 14 scholars in Mississippi randomly divided into two houses. There were 7 in my house (or the ‘Apartment’) and 7 just across a car park in another house. My ‘apartment’ was more of a small add-on to a long-abandoned dorm building, which was lovingly given the title “The Sketchy Space” and thoroughly checked for possible squatters.

Given that most of the 14 of us only had basic cooking and cleaning experiences, Cleveland didn’t offer much in terms of nightlife (or arguably day-life) and rare few of us would ever be described as passive, the summer made for some interesting, reality-show worthy moments. Arguments over who ate whose food, who let the mosquitos in and who used the last of the toilet paper…again were coupled with barbeques, card games and lots of long late night chats.

Things that become apparent when you live with people:

• Somebody always leaves the toilet roll empty and the tap dripping, but surprisingly no one is ever to blame. My sincerest apologies to my mother and father for the years at home where I was that person, you were right, it is annoying.
• For some reason BOTH packets of bread, ham, cheese or spinach will always be open at the same time, for no good reason.
• People who like to sleep early, or sleep at all (luckily not me) are in for a rough time, there will always be people awake talking or singing along with the guitar – no matter what time.
• Even the pacifists who resist killing cockroaches and spiders will surrender under the pressure of the bug onslaught, and even lead the mass-mosquito extinction.

All the different houses and locations had a different living experience this Community Summer so I can't speak for everyone. For me, living with Charlotte, Rachel, Brooke, Sebastian, Christina and Griffin made the summer an amazing experience. I could not be more grateful for their fun-loving natures, willingness to pitch in, interesting conversations and loving personalities.

Life in Cleveland, Mississippi

Refresher: For Community Summer the Robertson Program places you and other scholars in either Whitesburg- Kentucky, New Orleans - Louisiana or Cleveland- Mississippi to live together whilst working in different volunteer capacities eg: writing for the local newspaper or teaching students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

With a week of sophomore year under my belt, I figure it was past time to tell y’all (only kidding) about my summer, specifically my time in Cleveland, Mississippi. I’ve had some time since leaving MS to process my two-month experience there. The combination of working and immersing myself in an entirely different culture while living with 7 people 24/7 for two months was what made this summer so unique and memorable. I may never do anything like this summer again and so I am so grateful for my 8 weeks of writing local interest stories, observing a distinctive culture and bonding with incredible people.

What I came to know, love and laugh about in Mississippi:

Weather: You know when you have a really hot shower and you step out into a steamy, sticky swirl of heat? That’s pretty much Mississippi summer weather.

I actually like humidity and heat though my hair does not (think Princess Diaries before the makeover). However, not everyone loved being sticky all the time and I have to admit there were some very hot days that made me extremely thankful for our air-conditioning!

Mississippi’s climate is a perfect incubus for mosquito and cockroach breeding. Luckily I managed to dodge the worst of the mozzie bites sharing a room with Charlotte whose blood must be the most delicious thing ever. The seven of us in the apartment became a mozzie and roach killing team… except for Seb who would just climb on top of furniture and scream “Murder it! Murder it!” There was definitely something to be said for the truck blasting a cloud of mosquito killing, possibly tumor inducing, chemicals over Cleveland every night.

People: The people in Cleveland epitomize the meaning of Southern Hospitality. They are warm, generous and social people who cherish the community they have built around them. However, as much as they love their town most of them would appreciate being able to go grocery shopping, go on a date or have a little bit of a whinge about their neighbor, without it being popular local gossip.

Food: Is fried. ‘Soul Food’ aka fried chicken, candied yams, biscuits, fried okra and fried catfish is in fact the heart and soul of Mississippi cuisine (at least in Cleveland). There are rare few international cuisine influences, apart from the odd Chinese-Japanese restaurant (because all Asain food is alike – right?) and a Mexican restaurant run by, and I quote, “real Mexicans!” In fact when I asked in Walmart where I could find pesto I only got blank looks. After spelling the word out, describing how it is made and what it is used for and receiving only “Ain’t got no idea what that is”…I gave up. That being said I am sure the Mississippians would have found my acute lack of knowledge of okra and how to eat a hot tamale, (note: you take off the inedible, tough corn husk before biting, persistently chewing and swallowing), highly amusing.

Expressions: Aside from the obvious, now familiar, “y’all”, I had to adjust to a much more Southern accent and way of speaking than I find in the largely heterogeneous community at Duke. My personal favourite was “finna” as in “I’m finna go to church”. An abbreviation of “fixing to” aka “about to do something” this one never stopped taking me by surprise. Also, when my editor said she could “carry” me home, she didn’t mean physically in her arms. To “carry” someone somewhere just means that you’ll give them a ride (or Aussie style: a lift). People in Mississippi seemed so kindly when they spoke about people in town, “Oh the girl who works downtown? Bless her heart!” they would exclaim. Turns out “Bless your heart” is a southern way of veiling insults, “She is so slow at packing those groceries, bless her heart”. So if somebody blesses your heart down in Mississippi you better figure out what ignorant, slow or out of place thing you’ve done.

I finna go now but I wanted to say how much I loved the friendly, easy-going atmosphere of Mississippi where the clock runs on Delta-time and everyone always has a minute and a smile to spare.