Jackson Free Press

The Secretary of State posted a new initiative to its website that reads:

Initiative #46 would amend the Constitution to restrict or define Mississippi’s heritage in the following areas: religion, official language, state flag, nickname, song, motto and state university mascots. Further, the initiative would prevent the consolidation of Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi University for Women, and Mississippi Valley State University, designate the month of April “Confederate Heritage Month,” and reinstate Mississippi’s Constitutional boundaries.

The initiative was filed by Arthur Randallson, Magnolia State Heritage Campaign Director and former Tea Party of Mississippi Chairman. Randallson also previously proposed an initiative to amend the constitution to designate Colonel Reb the official mascot of the University of Mississippi.

Some say his current initiative is a way to declare Christianity the official religion of Mississippi. This pretty clearly violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, so it doesn't seem that the initiative would pass tests of constitutionality. Either way, the amendment proposal won't appear on the ballot in 2015 unless the group gets 107,216 certified signatures.

Christopher Epps, the long-tenured commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections has resigned effective today.

The letter of resignation he submitted to Gov. Phil Bryant did not state a reason for the unexpected departure nor has MDOC made one public.

The Clarion-Ledger cites "multiple sources" who confirm the existence of a federal probe, but the newspaper does not specify whether Epps is the subject of the investigation.

Epps had been the longest serving prison chief in state history.

Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove first appointed Epps to lead the agency in 2002; two subsequent Republican governors, Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant, kept Epps in place.

MDOC is searching for an interim commissioner.

What Rev. Joseph Dyer has done in his column published in The Clarion-Ledger today is suggest that white women, who he stresses are inherently more privileged, should have more rights than women of color. His column is called "Let's keep abortions safe, legal for white women," and he calls this proposal a "compromise."

"This compromise tells the children of black women that they are worthy, and desirable, and have been from the moment of their conception ... My compromise means that they will always know that their lives were protected, not just by their mother, but also by the law of the land," Dyer, pastor at St. Michael Parish in Forest, Miss., writes.

Leaving the option of abortion only up to white women, he says, tells white children "that the larger society was iffy about their value and worth at that time in their vulnerable lives."

He acknowledges that his "compromise" is horrible and racists, "but isn't that what compromise means, putting up with the disgusting to bring the nice a little closer?"

I assume the "nice a little closer" Dyer is referring to is the abolition of abortion for women of color. Only, Dyer seems oblivious to the fact that abortion is currently a right of all women in every state in the country (despite the fact that it is quickly being diminished by anti-abortion activist attempts).

To say that abortion should only be legal for white women is to say that abortion should be illegal for black women, which would only strengthen systematic oppression and racism against them. To "keep abortion safe, legal for (only) white women" is to make abortion dangerous for women of color.

Dyer says that his compromise will tell black children they are worthy, but instead it tells black women that they are not worthy of choosing when to become a mother and strips them of their autonomy.