Why do I live here?
Why do I live here?
It never fails. 9 times out of 10 when I explain where I come from and that I now live here, in Mississippi, I am asked "Why". Not why as in they are curious as to how I got here, but why as in why I stay here. I have heard it all.....Mississippi is backwards, Mississippi is dirty, Mississippi is racist, Mississippi is poor, Mississippi is corrupt and so on and so forth. While there are definitely blatant stereotypes fed by the media, I have to admit that a lot of it is true. We are a poor state by comparison. We have a litter problem. Our state and city governments are often run on the "good ol' boy" system.
I could move back west where everything is clean and everyone recycles and the governments pass laws to protect nature and such. In fact, there are many places in this country alone where living a good life would be easy, or at least easier. But for me, that would be lazy. You see I am an able bodied progressive thinker. This state needs people like me and the many others who stay here and fight for social, environmental and political change.
It's like those apathy commercials; like the one where the girls stand around the running faucet and talk about how someone should turn it off, yet no one ever does.
Now, I have many friends, who for one reason or another have had to leave due to the storm or the desire to raise their children in a different environment. I am not knocking that. But I am knocking those who live off the backs of past fighters and yet never become the change they wish to see in the world. Those who pass judgment on things they have never tried to change. Those who know the words to every folk song yet the only movement they know of is the one that comes from sucking down all that Starbucks (oh no she didn't!)
I may not set the world on fire, or end up with a monument in my honor in Jackson, but I will die trying....and that would be just fine.
*and just for the record, it's not all blight down here. There are many reasons I love living here that have nothing to do with my soap box.
It never fails. 9 times out of 10 when I explain where I come from and that I now live here, in Mississippi, I am asked "Why". Not why as in they are curious as to how I got here, but why as in why I stay here. I have heard it all.....Mississippi is backwards, Mississippi is dirty, Mississippi is racist, Mississippi is poor, Mississippi is corrupt and so on and so forth. While there are definitely blatant stereotypes fed by the media, I have to admit that a lot of it is true. We are a poor state by comparison. We have a litter problem. Our state and city governments are often run on the "good ol' boy" system.
I could move back west where everything is clean and everyone recycles and the governments pass laws to protect nature and such. In fact, there are many places in this country alone where living a good life would be easy, or at least easier. But for me, that would be lazy. You see I am an able bodied progressive thinker. This state needs people like me and the many others who stay here and fight for social, environmental and political change.
It's like those apathy commercials; like the one where the girls stand around the running faucet and talk about how someone should turn it off, yet no one ever does.
Now, I have many friends, who for one reason or another have had to leave due to the storm or the desire to raise their children in a different environment. I am not knocking that. But I am knocking those who live off the backs of past fighters and yet never become the change they wish to see in the world. Those who pass judgment on things they have never tried to change. Those who know the words to every folk song yet the only movement they know of is the one that comes from sucking down all that Starbucks (oh no she didn't!)
I may not set the world on fire, or end up with a monument in my honor in Jackson, but I will die trying....and that would be just fine.
*and just for the record, it's not all blight down here. There are many reasons I love living here that have nothing to do with my soap box.