Dai8ly Mississippian (U of Miss newspaper)

Jackson’s ‘crying wolf’ damages reputation, Southern race relations

by Mark Chaney July 18, 2001

The good citizens of Mississippi have been once again insulted by the incompetent ramblings of Jesse Jackson as he criticize the state's handling of purchasing land for the Madison Nissan plant.

Jackson, having a horrible time coming to grips with his growing irrelevance in the politics of the 21st century, is frantically grasping for anything to try to keep himself in the public eye.

After following the crowd of washed-up, self-serving "activists" to the most popular hotel in Puerto Rico (the Vieques jail), Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH come back to his favorite whipping boy, Mississippi, and somehow latched on the idea that the state of Mississippi is cheating black landowners by not offering them adequate compensation after purchasing their property for the coming Nissan plant. The only proof he has of any wrong doing is that he figures if the state is having any dealings with black citizens, it must be to cheat the black people out of money.

Jackson claims that black landowners were only offered a third of the $60,000 an acre that was offered to white landowners.

First of all, a major problem any large company has in purchasing land for projects is getting fair prices for their purchases. One week, land (like the land in Madison County) is practically worthless, but as soon as the owners get wind of a big corporation looking to buy that same land, it suddenly becomes valued family land with sentimental value that only a large amount of money could compensate for. The owners then proceed to gouge the company for outrageous land prices.

The truth about the Nissan plant is the state paid an average price of $18,531 an acre for the land. The 12 tracts belonging to black owners were purchased for $24,500 an acre, well above the average. How can any intelligent person argue that the black landowners were taken advantage of?

If anybody was taken advantage of, it was Nissan and the state of Mississippi that paid that much money for that land.

Nobody supports Jackson in his claim. Even the Black Caucus of the Mississippi Legislature has come out to refute the baseless accusations.

On the subject of the land deal, Jackson state "This is no less than state-subsidized economic discrimination. There is no room in the New South for such old-style oppression."

The truth is, Jesse, there is no room in the New South for irresponsible mudslingers like you that care nothing for people of any race or their well-being, only the size of the donations you can coerce people into giving to support you (not to mention you're illegitimate children) and your inane "injustices." It's people like you that take attention away from serious social causes and damage the credibility of serious Civil Rights activists.

It's also reckless accusations like this one that take attention away from the progress that Mississippi and the rest of the New South has made in healing race relations. Personally, I think it's a tribute to the state of Southern civil rights that Jackson has so little actual injustice to fight that he has to manufacture causes such as the Kokomo suicide and Nissan land discrimination.

Hey, Jesse, why not take a little break from the South. Your credibility here is right up there with Rev. Jim Baker. Maybe you should take a little trip further North. Say, Cincinnati. You know, where they still have race riots in the streets.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001