Thread by @ashtonpittman

I know a lot of people are talking about boycotting Georgia/rethinking plans to move to Atlanta.

But that's what the good ole boys want. They'd sacrifice Atlanta's prosperity & run it down like Mississippi's GOBs ran down Jackson to preserve their power.

https://twitter.com/ritaresarian/status/1375849944230285314

If Jackson had been allowed to thrive like Atlanta, Mississippi would be just as much of a contested state where Black people have serious statewide political power as GA.

Instead, good ole boys ran our capital city into the ground after civil rights (hence the water crisis).

In an already 38% Black state like Mississippi, a thriving capital city that attracts a diverse young people from around the country like Atlanta does would be an imminently fatal threat to the Good Ole Boy system.

Hence why Jackson's prosperity has been sabotaged for decades.

If it doesn't make sense to you that a state like Mississippi would allow its capital city to fall into such ruin over the decades that residents wind up without clean running water for a month, this is why. Atlanta is why.

It's also why our history rich Delta, where the Blues & rock was born, has been allowed to fester in poverty.

It's harmed all Mississippians. But it kept the entrenched GOB power structure intact after civil rights/voting rights at the expense of our people. That was the point.

We like getting revenue from travelers & visitors who come here to marvel at our history or to produce poverty porn for national consumption. We make sure we're interesting enough to attract visitors & tourists, but not enough to make them want to stay & disrupt the status quo.

And of course, there's always the wink wink nudge nudge blaming of Jackson's woes on "crime" and its majority Black population—usually by the powerful folks who are actual responsible.

It's a convenient way to do little to help the capital city without revealing real motives.