Jackson Free Press

Just in, verbatim:

Oxford, MS Unanimously Passes Pro-LGBT Resolution

Third Mississippi city to pass resolution recognizing the role LGBT people play in thriving communities

WASHINGTON - Tonight Oxford, Mississippi unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the dignity and worth of all city residents - including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). Oxford joins two other Mississippi cities - Starkville and Hattiesburg - which both passed similar resolutions earlier this year.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin issued the following statement:

“Like so many cities across America, Oxford, Mississippi has made clear that all its residents deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and equality, regardless of who they are or who they love. Today the Oxford Board of Alderman proudly affirmed the city’s support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and moved Mississippi forward on the road to equality.”

“Diversity is what made and continues to make this country amazing. It strengthens and enhances the experiences of everyone, to understand that it is our differences from which we learn and make us stronger,” said Alderman Jay Hughes. “At a time when signals from some parts of the State seem to be focused on exclusion, I am absolutely honored and proud to be in a community that embraces inclusion of everyone, to make Oxford the great place that it is. Tolerance and acceptance creates the strongest bonds between neighbors, and I am proud to be on the right side of history in reaffirming Oxford’s long-standing commitment to that most fundamental principle.”

Public opinion on equality in Mississippi is far ahead of law in the state. A poll conducted last summer found that nearly 60 percent of Mississippians under the age of 30 support marriage equality, while 64 percent of residents back workplace non-discrimination protections for LGBT employees.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

During the last couple weeks of talking about the Confederacy (and the state flag that celebrates it), we've encountered any number of historic inaccuracies in the arguments of those who don't want to change our state flag.

One of them is that (a) not many white Mississippians even owned slaves and (b) that only 6 to 10 percent of Confederate soldiers owned slaves.

Here are the problems with that argument as the chart and link before bring into full relief. As you can see in this excellent MPB documentary, many Confederates soldiers were just 17 or 18 years old. But many of the soldiers' families owned at least one or two slaves.

Based on 1860 Census results, 49 percent of Mississippi households owned slaves at the start of the Civil War, and more than half the population of our state—55 percent—were slaves. Slavery was massive here and directed affected nearly half the white families in Mississippi, including some who weren't as wealthy as the planters who owned many slaves (and who were at first exempt from fighting in the Civil War when the Confederacy instituted a draft, but that's another subject).

The chart below shows the number of slaves in all of the states that existed at the start of the Civil War.

Also, read my column this week, "Driving Old Dixie Down," for many links to historic sources about Mississippi and other Confederate states at the start of the war, including extensive evidence of why the Confederacy formed: in order to have a strong central federal government to force slaves on any new states, and to ensure that it got its runaway slaves back.

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2015/jul/02/21958/

We've heard about a number of debate parties in Jackson and beyond. You're on your own to figure out the drinking games. Here are the ones we know about; feel free to add your own!

1. Hal & Mal's Red Room, downtown Jackson, tends to be a progressive crowd that likes to imbide.

2. Koinonia Coffeehouse, JSU parkway, also leans progressive but of more of the coffee-drinking type.

3. The @MadisonCoMSGOP is hosting a debate watch party in Ridgeland. Details here: twitpic.com/b0esqh -- decidedly not progressive. We don't know if they're drinking or not, but suspect there will be a flash or two at least.

4. If you're on the Coast, the @HCRepublican is hosting a debate watching party at their HQ in Gulfport. More info here: us4.campaign -- Republicans, duh. See flash guess above.

5. Pi(e) Lounge at Sal & Mookies (Fondren) is inviting people to come there and watch. Probably a mixed group, politics wise, but we wouldn't expect many birthers. The cocktails will flow freely.

6. The 29th Annual Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Symposium starts tonight at the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy at Jackson State with a keynote address by Dr. Mary Coleman at 6:30 p.m. in the Dollye M.E. Robinson College of Liberal Arts and will be followed by a debate watch tonight and will continue throughout the day tomorrow. We're guessing that the punchbowl won't be spiked. Go ready to think and be sick and tired of being sick of tired in honor of the great Mrs. Hamer.

7. Watch the debate at the Top Notch Sports Bar at 109 Culley Drive. We don't know their politics--football?--but clearly you can get a beer. It's a sports bar, fool.

Meantime, join our open discussion about the debate here. Follow us on Twitter @jxnfreepress and @jfppolitics for even more. (Where were you when Twitter broke? We expect it'll be tonight.)

Jackson City Councilman De'Keither Stamps, of Ward 4, says he voted against the Trilogy Engineering Inc. contract to do a corrosion study for the city last week because it is an "unfunded mandate" by the State of Mississippi—and one the taxpayers cannot afford. In two videos on his YouTube channel, Stamps said his main priority wasn't who was getting the contract, but that the State was demanding that the City suddenly pay $400,000 for a corrosion study, instead of helping the capital city.

"I know several of the subcontractors personally," he says in the most recent video (see below). The issue is I don’t want to spend $400,000 when we don’t have it. This is an unfunded mandate from the State of Mississippi. If they can help us, I’m all for it. … It’s not something we’ve budgeted for."

Stamps, who has unsuccessfully asked for an emergency declaration over the lead issue several times, says the City needs stand and/or federal assistance in order to make sure Jackson residents are safe, especially in areas where 90 percent of the water tested positive for at least trace elements of lead.

"I want to test every child in the whole city that’s in these affected areas," he said in the second video below.

Today, several southern Democratic Party heads, including Rickey Cole of Mississippi, signed a letter asking Bernie Sanders to stop characterizing southern voters as people who "distort reality":

The letter, posted on Politico, started in part:

We commend you on running a spirited campaign that has energized and mobilized a new generation of voters, but we are concerned about the way you and your campaign have characterized the South.

As you may recall in 2006, the Democratic National Committee chaired by former Vermont Governor Howard Dean took two historic steps towards diversity and inclusion. First, the DNC modified its Presidential Primary process and added South Carolina and Nevada (states with sizable minority populations) to join the historic early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Governor Dean stated at the time that he “strongly believed in the importance of broadening participation in the nomination process to better reflect the rich racial, regional and economic diversity of the Democratic Party.” Second, Governor Dean initiated a 50-state strategy to strengthen the Democratic Party and amplify Democratic voices in all states and not just states traditionally dominated by Democrats.

The greatest asset we have as a party is our diversity—a diversity of cultures, religions, ethnicities, experiences, and backgrounds.

Yet over the course of this Democratic primary, you and your surrogates have sought to minimize Secretary Hillary Clinton’s victories throughout the South as a symptom of a region that, as you put it, “distorts reality.” You argue that the South is “the most conservative part” of America; implying states that traditionally vote Republican in a general election are not worth contesting in a Democratic Primary.

...

Southern Democrats already have to deal with Republicans refusing to expand Medicaid, deteriorating infrastructure, and the lack of adequate funding for our public schools. We need our national Democratic leaders to invest in our races and causes—to amplify our voices, not diminish them. In contrast, Hillary Clinton has spent her entire career trying to help people all across the South. She saw a region full of families and children of every color, and instead of diminishing them, she worked to build them up. She is committed to a long-term strategy of rebuilding our state Democratic parties, to assist candidates up and down the ballot, and to serve as a voice for the voiceless. She has not dismissed the importance of states that you have won, because she realizes s that to be President of the United States you have to be a champion for all of the states. To be leader of the Party, you have to be with Democrats in all states as well. That includes the ones you won and yes, even the ones you lose.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/04/20/southern-democrats-revolt-demand-bernie-sanders-minimizing.html

Note: This story has been updated with a total donation figure that Lee's backers gave to federal Republican candidates since 2008. The new paragraph is bolded down below.

In the WAPT-Clarion-Ledger debate, Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. alluded to the fact that he is a real Democrat when he unloaded on opponent Jonathan Lee in his closing statement. This is clearly a continuation of some Jacksonians' belief that Lee is a "Rankin County Republican," a meme we've heard off and on for months now.

We have factchecked both parts of that allegation to the best of our ability and will address them both below.

First, Rankin County

Lee's campaign materials make him sound like a life-long Jacksonian. His website states:

Jonathan was born, grew up and lives in Jackson. Jonathan was born and raised in Jackson into a family with deep ties throughout the community. The son of two Lanier graduates and part of a family whose roots span three generations in Jackson’s Georgetown community, Jonathan learned early what it meant to be proud of one’s city.

Jonathan called all of Jackson home – from growing up on Meadow Lane to getting picked up by his grandmother (“Big Mama”) after school who lived in Georgetown. After graduating from high school, Jonathan attended Mississippi State University, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and a Master’s in Business Administration.

The part that is left out of that description is that Lee's family moved to Rankin County in 1988 when he was 11. He later graduated from Northwest Rankin High School and did not live in Jackson again until 2009 when records show that Lee and his wife moved into Jackson from Rankin County. When asked, he does not deny that he has lived less than four years in Jackson as an adult.

Lee, who is 35 now, took over as president of his father's company when he was 24, according to his campaign materials. He told the Jackson Free Press that he stepped down from the company, which he never owned, in December 2011, meaning that he ran it for about 10 years.

Candidate Lee ran into a Rankin-related controversy last year after a commenter posted on the Jackson Free Press site that he was still driving a Maroon SUV with a Rankin County plate. In response to an Aug. 10, 2012, query about it, Lee emailed the Jackson Free Press:

This particular rumor has been shopped around various media outlets all week. The vehicle I assume that they are referring to is my company vehicle. My personal vehicle is registered in Hinds County, a fact easily verified.

MPI is owned by an entity chartered and located in Rankin County. It was where our distribution company was originally located. In fact, MPI has only been located in Jackson for 19 years. For those 19 years MPI has paid property taxes, inventory taxes, and school taxes in Jackson, Miss. The parent company is still located in Rankin county …

It is JFP Chick Ball season in Jackson, and we need your help to fight domestic abuse—this year to start a rape crisis center and raise awareness about sexual assault in our city and state! Here are 10 easy ways you can help.

Who hasn't bothered to file campaign-finance reports for the primaries?

Organizers today cancelled the 37th Annual Mississippi Picnic in Central Park, saying it would not happen this year due to passage of House Bill 1523. The picnic was planned for Saturday, June 11, Noon to 5:00 pm in Central Park at 5th Avenue and 72nd Street. The theme of the 2016 picnic was to be “Nothing but the Blues,” as a tribute to B. B. King.

The New York Mississippi Society organizes the picnic, which has been a huge promotional and networking opportunity that draws together Mississippi natives living in New York City and tourism and other business officials who travel there for the picnic.

A woman who answered the phone at the number posted on the website promoting the picnic earlier today said that an update would be posted on the website soon.

Mississippi Development Authority spokesman Jeff Rent said today, via email, that the State and MDA were not consulted in advance of the decision, which came from the organizers based in New York. "The New York Mississippi Society has made the decision to cancel the Mississippi Picnic in Central Park. We are disappointed in not only their decision, but also their lack of discussion with Mississippi partners before cancelling the event," Rent wrote.

Two years ago, famed Oxford chef and restaurateur John Currence and Ole Miss students brought a pro-LGBT message to Central Park after Gov. Bryant signed the earlier, but less odious religious-freedom act.

A petition had urged New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and others to stop the picnic in Central park after the passage of House Bill 1523.

The website states:

Faster than a New York minute, we can tell you one thing, Mississippi should not be proud, nor does it deserve to celebrate their State in this park if they don't share New York’s values of diversity, inclusion and mutual respect.

The official website for the picnic lists their mission as "To preserve the culture and heritage of the state of Mississippi." The "heritage" of Mississippi has no business being on full display in the cathedral of parks in New York City. Mississippi has routinely been on the wrong side of history and once again in 2016, the state passes legislation that puts members of the LGBTQ community at risk. At an event of this nature, Mississippi wants to claim the literary great in native son Tennessee Williams, a gay man, who if alive today could now be legally denied a meal in an Oxford restaurant because the owner didn't approve of his sexual orientation.

The front page of the website promoting the picnic changed dramatically in the last half hour, from the top image here to the bottom one:

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2016/apr/12/25355/

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2016/apr/12/25356/

UPDATE: The Copiah County Courier has a copy of a press statement from the picnic organizers posted. Here is is verbatim:

Annual New York - Mississippi Picnic Cancelled Event was scheduled for June 11 in Central Park

We, the founders …

OK, Snark King, it's your turn.

I've had it in the back of my head to blog about a really offensive post by The Clarion-Ledger's city reporter Brian Eason for weeks now, but it had fallen to the side in the need to report actual news. But while cleaning up my desk today, I started noticing a pattern—first from a clipping of another snarky thing he wrote calling a whole city office stupid, and then I saw a blog post belittling an enterprise story by our staff this week, but without actually saying what was in it or linking to it. So here's my Friday afternoon round-up of what I've been noticing about Mr. Eason's snark, which I assume is meant to be humor, except none of it is funny.

No. 1. Don't dare compare crime to terrorism, dumb little council candidate. After 20-year-old minister Corinthian Sanders decided to get involved enough to run for City Council, he made the mistake of saying that the "terrorism" of crime was one of his top priorities (as if he's the first to ever say that here). Sanders told the Jackson Free Press: "Let’s talk about getting our lawbreakers, criminals—I call them terrorists….(If) you can’t go anywhere without killing someone or robbing someone or terrorizing someone, that’s terror, (and) you’re a terrorist; you’re a domestic terrorist.” The mention of the word terrorism tickled Eason's funny bone. He snarked:

"To my knowledge, no major terrorist attacks have occurred or been planned on our streets, and the Jackson Police Department reported no terrorist incidents in 2012, according to its published crime stats. But maybe that’s what the terrorists want us to think.

"Lest anyone think Sanders is trying to politicize the Boston Marathon bombing, rest assured, his commitment to fighting terrorism on the streets of Jackson predated the explosions at the marathon.

"But while Sanders listed counter-terrorism as his No. 2 priority, right behind “protect, improve and increase affordable housing,” none of his competitors — or, indeed, any other candidates in the entire metro area — mentioned local terrorism as a problem worthy of their consideration.

Eason's blog post shows he later clarified what Sanders meant, and quoted Sanders' above words from the JFP in an addendum to the snark-post, but that nasty horse was out of Eason's barn by then. That's what you get for running for office in Jackson, Corinthian. The ire of a native Dallasonian. And I really don't know what all his references to monkey videos on your Facebook page were about, and don't care.

No. 2. In a post called "Common sense? Not at clerk's office," Eason showed the entire staff of the Jackson city clerk's office not to mess with him, no sir. He was irked that he couldn't get election results from the clerk's office at 11 a.m. the day after the primary. They didn't have certified results available, yet, and gave him a bit of a runaround. OK, it's fair to …

We're trying to find the context of the $294,000/grant accusation in the email the Lee campaign sent out, but wouldn't document. We found the 2008 Clarion-Ledger story that the Lee campaign cited, as well as stories in the JFP. First, the Ledger story.

It was about then-Mayor Melton's abysmal financial management. It mentions the administration's complaints about problems left over from Johnson--which I personally take with a grain of salt until I find out the context. Because if there was anybody who could blame anyone but themselves, it was the Melton administration. Here's the relevant part of the story, "City not responding to suggestions":

"An employee hired by Mayor Frank Melton to assess Jackson's fiscal situation says she is fed up with Melton and his department heads for not responding to her recommendations to fix the city's bookkeeping problems. Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Valerie Nevels, a former Internal Revenue Service criminal investigator, said the mayor has not reinforced her suggestions. ...Nevels outlined to the City Council Budget Committee and various department heads a recent audit of city finances. She said it indicated sloppy accounting has left the city at risk of losing millions in federal funds and blurred its financial condition. The audit examined records from Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 30, 2006. To improve financial management in the city, Nevels has tried training personnel in such areas as filing quarterly reviews, balancing accounts monthly and setting firm deadlines for purchases and transfers. But employees have ignored the procedures and guidelines she passed out Oct. 1, she said. Nevels said Melton's response was for her to "make it happen." ...

...Melton and Walker said the city's poor accounting practices are left over from previous administrations. Nevels concurred, saying that during former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr.'s administration, the city had more people working on financial statements and grants but the same problems existed. Johnson, mayor from 1997-2005, said his administration "took great pains to make sure the financial system was adequate. Johnson said that in his last year as mayor the city's bond rating was increased twice. Despite his efforts, Johnson's administration left behind some mismanaged grants, which the current administration and council had to deal with last fall. The city had to repay more than $294,000 on a grant because the grant was not spent in the required time period. Another $29,412 had to be repaid for the same period. "Clearly (Johnson) didn't walk away from this enterprise with clean hands, nor is the Melton administration going to walk away with clean hands," council President Leslie Burl McLemore said.

I vaguely remembered this controversy because it surprised us that a Melton hire was whistle-blowing on him. So I searched our database and found these stories about the problems that Nevel revealed: No Oversight Costing City Nobody Minding the Store

Adam Lynch also reported on Johnson and grants in this story right after he returned to office.

Although all of those stories bring back painful Melton-era …

A dark storm is brewing in and near Natchez, Miss., after the publisher of MissLou Magazine, The Natchez Sun and Natchez Sun XPress made shocking statements about young black people on Jan. 11, 2017, apparently in jest.

Peter Rinaldi wrote in a MissLou Magazine column titled, "Bang, Bang, You're Dead": "Natchez has become increasingly dangerous in the last eight years. As the population becomes more demographically poor, uneducated, unskilled and dominantly African American, the number of shootings has gone through the roof."

Rinaldi then lists three shootings and two deaths since the year started. He then added: "This is not such a bad thing, as one cynic remarked. The more criminals who shoot each other and are 'taken out,' the safer it is for the rest of us, the logic goes. Three shootings, three bad guys eliminated. Fifty shootings, 50 bad guys eliminated."

Then, he turns to joking, it seems, saying that "we were glad to hear local officials have finally fashioned a new anti-violence plan, which will be advertised in print and on the airwaves shortly, with posters spread all over town." That plan, he wrote, is called the Natchez-Adams County Gangbangers' Rodeo, which will be held March 12 at 7 p.m. at Liberty Park (where Natchez's Klan rallies used to happen, but we'll get to that). It is open to those 13 and up.

Rinaldi then explains in detail how this "rodeo" will work: "Open to all gangbangers with a .45 or 9 mm handgun. Limited to 20 rounds per person. Entry fee $100. Must be paid in cash in advance. No checks." The participants will then get in a circle and start shooting each other when the referee fires the starter pistol. They all kill or maim each other, and the last one standing gets $10,000. Free hot dogs and beers will be served, as well as fireworks. DJ Mortem, he writes, will provide live rap music. (See images of his event description below.)

The Mississippi Rising Coalition on the Gulf Coast alerted me to the editorial. Lea Campbell of MRC sent me the following statement:

"This kind of blatantly racist and classist editorializing and commentary from the publisher of a magazine in the Natchez area is irresponsible and unacceptable. Widespread violence in a community is the symptom of underlying social problems like poverty, institutional and structural racism, underfunded and segregated educational systems, untreated mental illness among many, many others. Mr. Rinaldi fails to express an understanding of these factors and scapegoats the issue of increasing violence in a way that will only act to fuel further racial and class division in the community instead of bringing the various community members together to work on effective, sustainable solutions. Shame on him for using his power and platform in such a reckless, dehumanizing and negligent way."

She also sent this statement from an MRC member whose parents reside in Natchez: "There are a million reasons that these shootings are occurring, and not a single one of them is …

The JFP got more great news Friday night when we learned that we are winning two first-place and one second-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists' southeastern division. Valerie Wells takes first place for feature writing, the Personhood team (this time, including R.L. Nave and Adam Lynch) takes second place for public service, and I won first place for serious commentary. Here is the full press release. Cheers to the team, congratulations to all the winners. We're honored to be in your company:

This falls in the can't-make-it-up column.

Most of you know that Mitchell Moore of Campbell's Bakery, who is straight, and Eddie Outlaw of William Wallace Salon, who is gay, and others started the amazing "If You're Buying, We're Selling" campaign. They want Mississippi business owners to put stickers in their windows to indicate that they don't discriminate, in response to SB 2681, Mississippi's version of the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." (See lots of business owners with the icon in their ads in this week's JFP, too.)

So, the religious right is apparently not happy with the international media coverage the campaign is getting -- and from Mississippi, which is supposed to be their wheelhouse, you know. They really didn't like it when Emily Pettus of the AP (the JFP's next-door neighbors) did a story about this that was picked up by many outlets.

In response, they went on a PR tear to take back the messaging. Greg Scott, who tweets at @adfmedia, led the way, tweeting this week in response to the AP story: "Sticker folks protest imaginary law .@AP bows false narrative, RFRA not "vaguely written," no threat to "=treatment" http://bit.ly/QEU2El

Curious, I did some research. Turns out, Scott is the VP for media communications for Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund), a nonprofit group founded in 1994 by extreme-right and vocally anti-gay leaders including James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association. (Interestingly, Mississippi's Judge Charles Pickering is also on the board.)

Not to be outdone, the American Family Association, an alliance co-founder, also blasted the sticker campaign on a Christian "news" site, which is part of the American Family News Network, which is part of the ... American Family Association. "It's not really a buying campaign, but it's a bully campaign," said Buddy Smith, executive vice president of Tupelo-based American Family Association, "and it's being carried out by radical homosexual activists who intend to trample the freedom of Christians to live according to the dictates of scripture."

The Southern Poverty Law Center includes the alliance (and AFA) on its list of a dozen groups that drive the "religious right's anti-gay crusade." On its website, it brags that its "attorneys have successfully defended marriage as the union between one man and one woman in over 40 cases nationwide."

SPLC indicates that the alliance was established in the early 1990s in response to gay-rights battles in the courts—which it clearly believes is the "principal" threat to religious freedom. ADF President Alan Sears and Vice President Craig Osten wrote " The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom," which ties homosexuality to pedophilia and other "disordered sexual behavior."

SPLC states: "The ADF has also mounted legal challenges to gay military service, marriage, adoption and foster-parenting, as well as to domestic partner benefits around the nation. It trains other attorneys 'to battle the radical homosexual …