Tag Archives: mississippi

COVID VACCINE VS. AN UNTUCKED SHIRT

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As you probably know, the governors of some southern states are prohibiting public schools from requiring kids and teachers to wear face masks. In Florida and Texas, this prohibition is statewide despite the fact that these states have the most new Covid cases in the country. Most hospitals in Texas and Florida have no available ICU beds. The governors of Florida and Texas say that the reason they are doing this is because they are “opposed to government mandates“, but these states have the nation’s toughest school behavior mandates in the country. In a number of southern states, a public school student who is caught wearing his shirt over his pants instead of tucked in is subject to corporal punishment by teachers and school staff. Thousands of kids in Texas public schools are spanked, paddled, or beaten every year for offenses such as wearing an untucked shirt or laughing in the cafeteria. In Mississippi, elementary school students have been sent to ‘juvie’ (a jail for juvenile criminals) for wearing the wrong color shoes. In Florida, children as young as 6 are subjected to corporal punishment. There are no regulations in Florida as to what instrument can be used to beat children with, and Florida schools do not need permission from parents to beat their kids. Southerners support these very harsh school mandates, but they become enraged when they are told to have their kids wear face masks at school because “we don’t believe in mandates.” Covid has killed over 600,000 Americans, but no child ever died from wearing an untucked shirt or laughing in the school cafeteria. The logic of these people escapes me. Southerners love their children and don’t want them to get sick and die. I don’t get it. No foolin’. I really don’t get it.

About California. Here in California, corporal punishment is prohibited in public schools. When I tell my students that in a number of southern states, teachers can beat students with a wood paddle or a leather belt for wearing an untucked shirt, they don’t believe me. I can see it in their faces. They ask other teachers in the school and their parents if it is true. Once they get confirmation that it is true, they go silent and stare at me. Some of my students told me later that they made their parents promise not to move to the South, at least not until all the kids in the house graduate high school. Some adults laugh when I tell them that, but I can assure you that none of my 13-year old students laughs when I tell them that kids their age are beaten in schools in the South every day for offenses such as ‘horseplay on a school bus’, ‘flatulence in class’, wearing mismatched socks, or wearing an untucked shirt. 

VOTING BY MAIL.

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It is very hard to vote by mail in some states, especially in the South. In Mississippi, you have to have an excuse for requesting an absentee ballot, your reason has to be accepted by a state official, and you have to make your request at least 30 before the election. Mississippi also has an unusual 2-tier voting system. It was put in the state Constitution in 1890 for the purpose of preventing African-Americans from getting elected to statewide office. The stated purpose of the 2-tier voting system was: “to secure to the State of Mississippi White Supremacy.” It seems hard to believe that laws like this are still the law in the South. Here in California, voting by mail is easy, and this year it will be even easier. In May, Governor Newsom ordered that every registered voter in California be mailed a vote-by-mail ballot prior to the November election. If you haven’t already registered to vote for the November election, you can do so by mail or phone. Just go to the website of the California Secretary of State.


How Medieval Is Mississippi? Last year, 1 in 14 students in Mississippi public schools was subjected to corporal punishment. Corporal punishment offenses include: failing to turn in homework, failing to tuck in your shirt, and laughing in a hallway. In 2019, the Mississippi state legislature passed a new law prohibiting teachers from beating physically disabled students. Think about that – until last year, schoolteachers in Mississippi were allowed to beat disabled children! Mississippi’s laws and ‘traditions’ have not enriched the people of the state or improved their lives. Mississippi is the poorest state in the U.S. Per capita income is $20,000 a year, about half the per capita income of California. Mississippi also has the lowest life expectancy of any state. Average life expectancy in Mississippi is 75. In California, it is 82. This difference is largely due to obesity and tobacco use. Mississippi has the second highest obesity rate in the U.S., 37% of the population. Cigarette taxes in Mississippi are among the lowest in the U.S., and smoking is permitted by state law nearly everywhere, including bars, restaurants, stores, day care centers, and doctor’s offices.

FACE MASK ‘TYRANNY.’

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Nobody complains when their kid’s school conducts mass shooting drills.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school installs metal detectors and requires everyone entering the school to go through them.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school installs bulletproof classroom doors, doors that are locked from the inside at the start of class.

Nobody complains when their kid’s school hires poorly paid security guards with guns. (We don’t have armed guards at the school where I teach, but the school’s mascot is a ferocious cartoon bulldog.)

Nobody complains about ads in their kid’s school newspaper for bulletproof backpacks and hoodies.

But what happens when people go to big box stores with their kids to buy those bulletproof backpacks? Clerks stop people at the door and tell them that they have to put on face masks in order to enter the store. Then people go nuts. They shout that this is tyranny and say that they have a Constitutional right to go into a store without wearing a face mask. Sometimes they also physically assault the store clerks. Then they are thrown out of the store and have to buy their bulletproof backpacks elsewhere. We don’t have any big box stores here in Berkeley, but you can buy bulletproof backpacks at Bed, Bath, and Beyond at El Cerrito Plaza. Bulletproof Backpacks.

The Constitution. There is nothing in the Constitution about face masks. It is amazing what some people think is in the Constitution. For example, the majority of Americans believe that the Constitution requires that the President has to be born in the United States, but that isn’t true. The President of the United States can be born anywhere in the world. Lots of presidential candidates were born in foreign countries. John McCain ran for president against Barack Obama. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was never part of the United States. Ted Cruz ran for president in 2016, and he was born in Canada. George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father ran for president in 1968. As a child, George Romney faced a lot of discrimination because he was born in Mexico. When he went to school in Los Angeles, other children taunted him by calling him ‘Mex’, but when George Romney ran for president, the fact that he was born in Mexico was not an issue. In 1968, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination for president were Romney and Nixon. The Republicans chose Nixon. After Watergate, a lot of them regretted that they didn’t pick Romney.

Mark’s Face Mask Advice. If you don’t wear a face mask because you fear that your brain won’t get enough oxygen and that you will become irrational, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but that horse is already out of the barn.

Mississippi Ratifies the 13th Amendment.

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Who says that Southern states are run by reactionary old curmudgeons? On February 18, 2013; the Mississippi state legislature voted to ratify the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery. The move came as a result to popular reaction to the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Lincoln’, which focused on Lincoln’s efforts to pass the 13th Amendment.  It only took the Mississippi legislature 148 years to ratify the amendment. Mississippi has still not ratified a number of other Constitutional amendments, including the 24th Amendment, which abolished to poll tax, a device used to prevent poor people from voting. Many other Southern states also never ratified the 24th Amendment. The 24th Amendment became part of the Constitution in 1964.

Prohibition. Mississippi has also never ratified the 21st Amendment, the repeal of Prohibition. Until 1966, it was illegal to produce, advertise, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages, including beer and wine, anywhere in Mississippi. Mississippi is still the driest state in the U.S. In half the countries in Mississippi, the transportation and sale of alcohol is still illegal. You can be arrested in Mississippi for driving through the state with a can of beer in your trunk. That is because it is impossible to drive through Mississippi on an interstate highway without passing through dry counties.