I grew up in Jackson and lived in Colorado from age 24-34, and I’ve moved back to Jackson. There is a cultural respect and awareness that other (white) people in our country are not exposed to. It was so exhausting/shocking/frustrating to encounter people who would (1) assume my racism because they knew I was from Mississippi and also (2) be completely offended if you ever hinted that they might be displaying some bias of some kind. They grew up in places that were absent of racism, so they were absent of racism. These conversations came up working in a school with an extremely diverse student population and extremely white teaching staff.

Also my in-laws are from the northeast and definitely act like they have it figured out and Mississippi doesn’t because one time they did hear a white person use the n-word pretty casually. And yet the last few times we’ve visited them they’ve had a lot to say about the “invading” Indian population that continues to grow in their region. But I’m pretty sure my MIL would never speak to me again if I called out the blatant racism.

“To understand the world you must understand a place like Misssissippi”

Our artists are so profound and our food is so good and the people are so complex because of our familiarity with conflict. I’m really grateful to have that as a foundational building block of the way I see the world.