Fall 2006

It's Getting Ugly

I'll Stop Reverse Stereotyping When Y'all Stop Southern Stereotyping

Mike Randle, Editor

Man, it sure is getting ugly out there. In the fall quarter, N.Y. Rep. Charles Rangel (D), the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?"

Rangel, added, "I certainly don't mean to offend anyone. I just love New York so much that I can't understand why everyone wouldn't want to live here." Note to Rangel: Since 1990, New York's population has grown at a rate of 7%. Mississippi's population since 1990 has grown at a rate of 14%, or double your state's increase in people wanting to "live" there.

Meanwhile, we are currently involved in a little feud with an economist from the Northeast and both parties continue to throw barbs at each other (see introduction to this issue's Part I of "Great Corporate Love Affairs in the South.")

This particular economist has been hired by several economic development agencies in the South over the last few years and we simply disagree with his policies. In fact, every Southern state he has contracted with, we think, has seen its unemployment rate rise -- in two cases, dramatically -- shortly after implementing his economic development strategies.

I will admit, I started the feud by writing a couple of issues ago, "Getting an economist from the Northeast to teach us about economic development here in the South is like getting someone from Wyoming to teach us about surfing." That quote was not completely original. I had some help from one particular Southern economic developer who will remain nameless here.

And it was just over a year ago that Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, based in Ontario, Canada, said shortly after landing a new Toyota plant, "The education and skill level of people down there (the South) is so much lower than it is in Ontario." Fedchun said that automakers in the South had resorted to using "pictorials" to teach some illiterate plant workers how to use high-tech plant equipment. In response, we quoted several officials representing automakers in the South and they told us they do not hire illiterate workers.

In the 15 years of this publication's existence, I've written many times in the last six or seven years that one of the South's greatest accomplishments in its history is the fact that almost all stereotyping has been snuffed out as a result of the region's great economic and social progress over the last 25 years. I have also joked that the reason Southern stereotyping has ended is because all those folks who wrote that stuff live down here now.

I must write that much of the South's progress has been initiated by the millions of people and companies who have relocated to the region from all over the world. Many of those folks have come from the Northeast and we're happy they are here. Again, the South's population currently equals that of the Midwest and Northeast combined.

But apparently I was wrong about the end of Southern stereotyping. They're back and I won't tolerate it. I will stop my reverse stereotyping when political officials and business leaders outside the region end their decades-old Southern slamming.