What America really needs, what with the world economy and all, is politicians who go out into the provinces and mock those who are fluent in languages other than English. Take, for example, disgraced former Majority Leader Trent Lott, who, at the Neshoba County, Mississippi, Fair, mocked John Kerry as "a French-speaking socialist from Boston, Massaschusetts." According to the Clarion-Ledger, of Jackson, Mississippi:
It was a line that Lott said he’d been working on for a while, and it produced loud applause from hundreds of Mississippians gathered at Founders’ Square, the centerpiece of the historic fair.
By way of background, the percentage of people in Neshoba County with college degrees is less than half the national and barely 70% of the state average. Perhaps coincidentally, the Neshoba County economy is not particularly advanced. Finance, insurance, professional, scientific, and technical service jobs constitute only 5.2% of Neshoba County's jobs, versus 10.9% nationally. The county's per-household income is 67% of the national average. And, given Senator Lott's background of nostalgia for the south's seg past, it's interesting to note that per capita income for blacks is half that of whites. (Statistics courtesy of ePodunk.com.)
The message that Neshoba County needs to receive from its leaders isn't that the educated and international are somehow suspect. It's that education and internationalism are the only hope for places like Neshoba County to thrive in the modern economy. Of course, there aren't any votes in that, and the job Senator Lott really cares about is his own.
Per-capita income levels reflect family size, not discrimination.
Posted by: John Doe | 08/03/2004 at 12:05 AM