While teaching in the Czech Republic I would often discuss the cultural differences between the Czech Republic and the United States. It would lead to comparisons of the Czech Republic with the American South as a region, my hometown of Savannah, TN, or sometimes a place like the Mississippi Delta. I remember once showing the economic statistics of the Mississippi Delta and the class could not believe it. These were middle aged students and they remembered living under communism in Czechoslovakia. From their vantage point, America is and was the richest country in the world. They wondered aloud how a place like the Delta could exist in America.
Ralph Eubanks’s When It’s Darkness on the Delta helps us see that the Mississippi Delta is not a place that should be seen as a wild exception to life in the U.S., but as a mirror of extremes for the country as a whole. Eubanks’s work situates the Delta as a product of our country’s tethered sins of white supremacy, unfettered wealth extraction, and violence. These are not unique to the Delta, but are more excessive cases. Eubanks also shows how the region is shrouded in mythology from its blues music tourism and representation in films and literature. This mythology often hinders a critical analysis of the region and allows travelers and citizens to be victims of nostalgia. While the Delta is often viewed through its mythology and the past, the Delta could actually be seen as the future script of many American communities, particularly rural ones.
Growing up in Tennessee, Mississippi was often used as the punching bag about anything from education, economics, or race. Yet, I’m not sure those punches land like they used to. With recent legislation, the state of Tennessee has passed school choice vouchers with the majority of the vouchers going to higher-income families that will slowly see school districts demographically look more like the 1950s. At the same time, Elon Musk’s data center in South Memphis is facing a federal lawsuit because of environmental racism for releasing dangerous toxins into the area. These are just two specific examples that mirror and draw from the same mentalities that produced the failed political policies of the Delta. I think about Malcolm X’s quote, “Mississippi is anywhere south of the Canadian border” and how it rings more true than it did ten years ago. As we continue down our current trajectory of Trumpian populism, there will be more and more Deltas. Unless we course correct and invest politically and economically into places like the Delta, Malcolm X’s quote will continually ring more true.
