Oops, our Bad(zium)
While on point with his review of Erykah Badu (See & Do, July 20), John Schacht is just a little confused. The name of Badu’s freshman disc was Baduizm, not Badzium. “Badzium” is instead a drug that was used to add a touch of realism to Tom Cruise’s children’s star turns in this year’s runaway hit Day of the Dead.
Paul Bellamy, Charlotte
Mississippi Still Burning
As a native of Neshoba County, MS, I closely followed the trial of Edgar Ray Killen and the ensuing discussions of race relations in Mississippi. I was surprised and disappointed to read the June 29 article in Creative Loafing, “Racial Healing in Mississippi,” which quotes me as saying, “race is no longer a factor” in Mississippi.
I do not recall the author of the article ever interviewing me. One night in March, I did join a group of people, including two from Creative Loafing, for dinner and a free-ranging conversation on the status of politics and policy in Mississippi and nationally. It was made clear by the staff of Creative Loafing that this was an off-the-record discussion for background purposes only to help the staff of Creative Loafing learn more about a Republican perspective of Mississippi politics. It is disappointing that Mr. Sugg decided to break with journalistic standards and report one part of a nearly three-hour conversation out of context.
More importantly, not only did I not say what was ascribed to me, I do not agree with it. What I have said in other conversations, and which I likely said that evening more than three months ago, is that race is no longer the single, paramount issue in Mississippi politics as it was in the 1960s. Is it still an issue? Yes. But it is not the only issue. Unlike 40 years ago, political debate in Mississippi now centers on job creation, education, health care, taxing and spending. While there are disagreements as to the best approaches to these issues, these healthy discussions are most often the result of differing philosophy, not race.
For reasons both good and bad, race is still a factor in Mississippi politics and policy-making, as it is across the nation. Unfortunately, there are some, white and black, who continue to see all issues through a racial prism and there are others who seek to inflame passions by injecting race into an issue when no racial issue exists. But most importantly, race is a factor since African-American children are more likely to be trapped in a failing school, African-American men and women suffer from chronic diseases at a disproportionately high rate, and African-Americas are more likely to be unemployed.
Jim Perry, Jackson, MS
John Sugg responds: Jim Perry fails to identify himself as the policy chief for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. His comments should be viewed in that context. The March dinner he mentions was attended by another Barbour aide, John Arledge, and by Barbour’s nephew, Henry Barbour. All three discussed at length their view that race was no longer a critical issue in Mississippi politics. I openly took notes during the dinner, and the comments weren’t off the record. For more on this letter, see www.johnsugg.com.
This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2005.
