Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
President Donald Trump embraces Tate Reeves during a campaign rally Tupelo on Nov. 1, 2019.
Gov. Tate Reeves condemned white supremacy groups Wednesday, but refused to criticize President Donald Trump’s refusal to do the same.
“I condemn white nationalist groups,” Reeves said Wednesday in response to a question from a reporter. But he said he did not “interpret” Trump as refusing to condemn white supremacy during Tuesday’s contentious debate with former Vice President Joe Biden.
When debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump and Biden if they condemned white supremacist groups on Tuesday night, the president did not do so, and instead said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.”
The Proud Boys has been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and has been accused of committing multiple violent acts during Black Lives Matter protests across the nation,
In recent days, antifa has been labeled by FBI Director Chris Wray as being a movement more than an organized group. People associated with antifa often are blamed for some of the violent acts during demonstrations in cities across the nation and are often in conflict, sometimes physically, with white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys.
During the debate, Biden condemned all violence that occurred at the protests. Reeves on Tuesday said Trump recently labeled both the KKK and antifa terrorist groups.
“I supported his effort to do so,” Reeves said.
While Reeves did condemn what he called “white nationalist groups,” he refused to say during the news conference whether he would vote in November to remove an 1890s provision from the state Constitution that was designed to ensure African Americans, then a majority in the state, were not elected to statewide office. The Legislature has placed a proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot to remove the measure after a federal judge, in response to a lawsuit, indicated that if the state did not, he might do it himself.
The provision requires a candidate for statewide office to garner both a majority of the popular vote and the most votes in a majority of the 122 state House districts. If candidates do not obtain both thresholds, the election is decided by the state House from the top two vote-getters.
Reeves said he would be announcing his positions on various ballot measures in the coming days, though he stressed he was supporting Trump.
Another person on the Nov. 3 ballot, incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, released a statement praising Trump’s debate performance, but did not comment on his refusal to condemn white supremacy.
In a statement, Hyde-Smith said the Tuesday debate “was a clear demonstration as to why those who want to keep America great must turn out and vote this Nov. 3. President Trump has brought better-paying jobs to our communities, strengthened our families, kept our country safe, and returned the rule of law to our courts, and he will continue to do so as our commander in chief for the next four years. He is the leader to take us back to our pre-pandemic growth.”
Hyde-Smith continued: “In stark contrast, Joe Biden has moved too far to the left for even most Democrats to be comfortable with, opening the door for Socialist ideals, including Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and an activist judicial takeover that bypasses Congress to impose a radicalized agenda.”
Biden said Tuesday night he did not support Medicare for all or the Green New Deal.
Hyde-Smith faces Democrat Mike Espy in the Nov. 3 election.
Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media during a press conference Friday, April 24, 2020 in Jackson.
Gov. Tate Reeves on Wednesday declined to extend a statewide mask-wearing mandate as COVID-19 cases remain relatively flat, saying “we should not use the heavy hand of government more than it is justified.”
He also called for any schools that remain closed to in-person teaching to open, but said mask wearing will still be required in schools, and at some “close contact” businesses such as salons and barber shops.
“It can be done safely — that’s been proven,” Reeves said. “There is no excuse to force parents across Mississippi to continue to be full-time teachers.”
Reeves’ decision to end the statewide mask mandate comes as similar mask mandates continue in 30 states. Reeves issued an executive order on Aug. 4 mandating wearing of masks in public after he had issued mask mandates on a county-by-county basis after COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in those areas spiked.
Reeves said he believes most Mississippians will continue to wear masks in public.
“I believe that masks work,” Reeves said. “I think the facts and data in our state and across the country bear that out. I still plan to wear one and I expect most people in our state will.
“It’s the smart and prudent and wise thing to do,” said Reeves, who has faced some criticism for himself appearing at crowded events without a mask. “But there is a difference between something being wise and something being a government mandate.”
Reeves’ executive order issued Wednesday will last through Nov. 11 and supersedes all previous ones, dating back to March. The new order relaxes other restrictions, increasing attendance at outdoor K-12 extracurricular events such as football games to 50% of seating capacity, raising limits on group gatherings to 20 indoors and 100 outdoors.
For college and university football games, stadium seating will remain restricted to 25% capacity, and attendees will still be required to wear masks while entering or moving in the stadium. Indoor club areas will be allowed a maximum of 75% capacity. A prohibition on tailgating remains in effect.
Reeves has, in turn, been criticized for being too slow or lenient with shutdowns or restrictions during the pandemic, and for being too strict. He said Wednesday he has always tried to balance his decisions, and “as a general rule, guidelines are better than mandates.”
“We need to trust the people of this country to look out for themselves,” Reeves said.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, who participated in Reeves’ Wednesday press conference, did not clearly answer when asked whether he agreed with removing the statewide mask mandate. He said he was encouraged that masks will still be required in schools, but said he understands the arguments of personal liberty. He said he plans to continue to wear a mask.
Since a steep drop in new COVID-19 cases from late August to early September, the daily average of cases has remained steady between 400 and 500 for most of this month. In late July, the seven-day case average peaked at 1,382 per day.
On Wednesday, the state Health Department reported 552 new cases and 12 new deaths, bringing the Mississippi case total to 98,190 and total deaths to 2,969.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith greets supporters during a 2018 campaign event.
Health care, which Democratic challenger Mike Espy has described as his top issue, is the focus of Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s second campaign ad in advance of the Nov. 3 general election.
“As your United States senator, I’ve made it a priority to improve access to quality health care for all Mississippians,” Hyde-Smith said in the 30-second TV ad released Wednesday.
Espy has for weeks focused on health care during the campaign, saying he wanted to be known as the health care senator for Mississippi.
“This is the No. 1 issue for the Espy campaign. It is the No. 1 issue in Mississippi,” Espy said.
Various polls have highlighted the importance of improved health care affordability and access for Mississippians with a Chism Strategies/Millsaps College poll in January, finding 70% of Mississippians were concerned about being able to afford health care. And the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the importance of the issue.
At the center of the health care issue is the future of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare. Hyde-Smith, a close ally of President Donald Trump, supports the president’s efforts to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s administration will be asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the signature law on Nov. 10 — one week after the election.
In Mississippi, an estimated 600,000 people with pre-existing conditions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, are guaranteed health care coverage because of the ACA, and an estimated 100,000 received coverage through the ACA exchange, with a large percentage of those insured receiving federal subsidies to help pay for the insurance.
In addition, Espy has supported the state expanding Medicaid, as is allowed under the ACA, to provide health care coverage to between 200,000 and 300,000 primarily working Mississippians who are in jobs that do not provide employer-sponsored insurance.
Mississippi is among 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid, refusing to provide the 10% match that states are required to provide for the expansion. If elected, Espy said he will work with the governor and the state Legislature to try to convince them to opt into the program in which the federal government pays 90% of the cost of the health care coverage. If unsuccessful with that pitch, Espy said he will work in the U.S. Congress to try to get the federal government to waive the 10% match for Mississippi.
Espy’s support of expanding Medicaid is shared by several prominent Republicans in Mississippi, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.
Hyde-Smith has not taken a position on the issue of Medicaid expansion, saying it is for state officials, not Mississippi’s federal officials to decide.
Asked about what would happen to people with pre-existing conditions should the ACA be repealed, Hyde-Smith campaign spokesperson Justin Brasell recently said, “President Trump has repeatedly stated that he will ensure that individuals with pre-existing conditions will continue to be covered regardless of the outcome of the litigation. Sen. Hyde-Smith agrees with the president that ensuring continued protection for these individuals is important and so does Senate Republican leadership.”
Thus far, the proposals made by Senate Republicans to cover pre-existing conditions in absence of the ACA have been met with skepticism by many health care advocates. The non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation, for instance, points out some Senate Republicans’ plans have prevented the exclusion of pre-existing conditions coverage from insurance policies, but do not provide financial supplements to make the plans affordable. In short, the insurance companies might be able to charge more for people based on their pre-existing condition and might even allow higher premiums for women than for men, according to the KFF analysis.
In Tuesday’s presidential debate, the president was asked about his plan to replace the ACA. He said he had a plan, but did not offer specifics other than to say it would be better than the ACA.
In Hyde-Smith’s new campaign advertisement, Hyde-Smith said, “I’ve worked to bring more support for rural hospitals.” At least six of the state’s rural hospitals have closed in recent years, with other Mississippi hospitals facing bankruptcy and possible closure, according to a January article from the Mississippi Rural Health Care Association.
The Mississippi Hospital Association has presented a plan to expand Medicaid, which hospital officials said would help the state’s hospitals, but it has been rejected by state leaders.
Scottie Scheffler hits from the 12th tee during the first round of the BMW Championship golf tournament, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, at Olympia Fields Country Club in Olympia Fields, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
So my task today: Pick a winner for the PGA Tour’s $6.6 million Sanderson Farms Championship to be played Thursday through Sunday at Country Club of Jackson.
Trying to choose a single winner from among a field of 144 might best be described as a fool’s errand. Nevertheless…
Rick Cleveland
The temptation is to pick one of the nine veteran major tournament champions here this week, including 2017 Masters winner Sergio Garcia, 2016 Open champion Henrik Stenson or 2011 Open champ Louis Oosthuizen. All have won on golf’s biggest stages. All have won all over the globe. All have played well recently.
The thing is, accomplished veterans aren’t usually the story in Mississippi’s only PGA Tour tournament. Here, youth is usually served. The last six winners of the Sanderson Farms Championship have been first-time winners, including Colombia’s Sebastion Munoz last year.
If I am right, that streak will continue and 2020 PGA Tour Rookie Scottie Scheffler will get his first tour victory here this week in his first start of what is now the 2021 season. Scheffler, a 24-year-old Texan who ranks No. 30 in the world golf rankings, has done everything but win on the tour. It’s high time for him to cross that off the list.
The strongest field in the tournament’s 53-year history is here this week. The golf course is immaculate. The weather should be sublime, October in Mississippi at its finest. This is what chicken magnate Joe Sanderson must have imagined four years ago when he signed on to sponsor this tournament through 2026 and negotiated the autumn dates. The only spoiler is the one that has spoiled 2020 all around the world: the COVID-19 pandemic, which will prohibit fans from attending. If you want to watch this week’s proceedings, you must do so on The Golf Channel.
And if you do, watch for Scheffler, the tall, slender former Texas Longhorn who hits the golf ball a mile and doesn’t back down when the stakes are highest. Scheffler was playing as well as anyone in the world from mid-July into early September. He didn’t win but he was a money-making machine. He tied for 24th at The Memorial, tied for 15th at the World Golf Championships in Memphis. He was just getting warmed up.
In the year’s first major in early August – the PGA Championship – Scheffler finished tied for fourth. He was fourth again two weeks later at The Northern Trust where he shot a remarkable 59 in the second round. He shot a final found 66 to finish 20th at the BMW Championship and then shot consecutive rounds of 66, 66 and 65 over the last three rounds of The Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta to finish fifth all alone.
All that made him one of the betting favorites headed into the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. If you follow professional golf much at all, you know what happened next. On the Sunday before the U.S. Open, Scheffler became the first Tour player in six weeks to test positive for COVID and was forced to withdraw.
Here Wednesday, Scheffler pretty much stated the obvious. “Yeah, yeah, that absolutely stunk, catching COVID,” he said … “It definitely stunk sitting at home all week watching the U.S. Open, especially the way I was playing leading into it. I felt like I had a good chance of winning. It stunk, but it’s the world we live in. I felt OK… felt good through it all and came out on the other side recovered so all good,” he said.
Scheffler will be making his first start after a layoff of nearly a month. Clearly, he aims to pick up where he left off. Sometimes, in golf, that’s not so easy. Golf is a game of rhythm. And Scheffler was very much in rhythm before COVID struck.
“I feel my game is still in a good spot,” Scheffler said. “I think there’s still a few areas that are a little rusty just from having not played tournament golf the last three weeks. It’s a little different feeling coming into this week. I’m not as in rhythm as I usually am, but hopefully I pick back up soon, but like I said, my game feels like it’s in a good spot.
“A good finish this week would be nice. … Obviously I’m here to win and that’s the goal, but really just trying to go out in the first round and do as best I can see what I’ve got this week.”
At 30th in the world, Scheffler is the highest ranked golfer here this week. He knows the course. He finished 16th here last year. And, he is no longer a rookie. Every PGA Tour golfer has one shot at Rookie of the Year. Scheffler aced his.
Jackson Public Schools students are conducting all of their classes this semester online. But that doesn’t mean they’re all at home. The Boys and Girls Club has opened its doors for working parents who cannot leave their children at home alone. At the Club’s Walker unit in south Jackson, organizers turned the gym into a makeshift classroom, with plastic tables spread out over the basketball court and cardboard partitions separating each student, as seen here on Sept. 14, 2020.
Are the kids alright?
During COVID-19, kids in Mississippi’s capital city are overcoming mammoth challenges unique from any generation before them — and doing it with grace.
Where the pandemic has illuminated historic unmet needs, it’s also put the community’s strength on display.
Kharter, a second grader at Galloway Elementary School in west Jackson, wiggles out of his seat at the Stewpot After-school Program where he’s completing a virtual grammar lesson and strikes a ninja pose.
He nails the look with the black facemask he’s wearing, not as part of a costume, but to guard against the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Anna Wolfe
Khamiya, 7, a second grader at Galloway Elementary School in west Jackson, dances outside of Stewpot’s after-school center, which started operating during the day to care for kids while they conduct their distance learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, on Sept. 24, 2020. Khamiya said she would rather attend school in person, but she said she recognizes virtual is a safer option.
His classmate Khamiya finishes her schoolwork before begging the teacher to go outside, where she’ll dance on the porch on a gray, drizzly day in late September. She hopes her dad will take her shopping at “Toys R Us” later.
Down the street, Javier and Kelvi, a second and third grader, dart through a classroom at the Boys and Girls Club Capitol Street unit, snatching stacks of notebook paper strips — handmade play money — off each other’s desks. Kelvi soon loses interest in hoarding her stash and playfully tosses the fake cash, letting it shower the linoleum. Her classmates dive to scoop it up.
The last six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the deaths, layoffs, evictions and school closures, have brought immeasurable hardship and heartache, especially to Black and poor communities in Mississippi. The rippling effects seem to have altered most aspects of everyday life — except for a child’s nature.
“They’re still learning with virtual learning. They’re able to still play,” said Brooke Floyd, director of children’s services for Stewpot Community Services. “Like, I think that’s a beautiful thing, when you put kids out in the yard and they don’t have any toys or can’t use the equipment and they still have fun and you can hear the laughter.”
“To me, that’s letting us know that everything’s going to be okay.”
With more than four in ten already living in poverty, Jackson children have long felt the unmet needs — perhaps most visibly a historically underfunded and segregated school system — that the pandemic has illuminated in their communities.
Anna Wolfe
Kharter, a second grade student who attends Stewpot Community Services’ youth program, takes a break from schoolwork on his computer to show off some moves on Sept. 24, 2020. He said he’s the Nine Tailed Fox from Naruto, a Japanese comic series. Later, he works with his teacher Mrs. Brooke on mastering adverbs. Virtual learning has made continuing education for Jackson Public Schools students during the COVID-19 pandemic possible.
Nearly every child in Jackson Public Schools is Black and lives in a low-income household, qualifying them for free or reduced lunch. School buildings never opened back up after March, spurring a frustrating fight to obtain enough E-learning technology for every student and sticking most families with tough decisions about where their kids will spend their days.
Unemployment benefits are dwindling and despite a federal moratorium, evictions have continued. And while efforts to get meals to children have been possibly the most valiant, food scarcity and affordability remains a persistent problem across the capital city.
This school year so far, the district has recorded 2,600 children — a tenth of their student body — as homeless, which usually means they are living unstably at other families’ homes. Still, about a third live in shelters or hotels. But this isn’t a COVID-19 problem: Last year, JPS had 3,100 enrollees in the federal McKinney-Vento grant to serve homeless students.
“A lot of our kids are so accustomed to going through a lot that it kind of rolls off them,” said Penney Ainsworth, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Central Mississippi. “Kids will adapt to whatever the setting is and what’s going on. But it’s a scary time. So they’re nervous, but they’re resilient.”
Playtime after a long day of virtual learning
Jackson Public Schools does not gather data showing where kids are conducting their virtual schoolwork, the district spokesperson told Mississippi Today, but many traditional afterschool programs like Stewpot Community Services and the Boys and Girls Club started operating at a lower capacity in the daytime to accommodate working parents.
Floyd normally has 40 students at her center, a bright blue house close to the city’s primary soup kitchen. The day camp is limited to 20 kids to ensure they can adhere to social distancing. These community organizations are, too, not able to offer the consistency and stability of the public schools. Just Monday Stewpot had to cancel virtual school for the day after a break-in occurred over the weekend.
“For people to expect the worst or think that the worst is going to happen, I’m not buying it. Even parents that are poor want their kids to succeed and they’re going to try their best to make it happen.”
—Brooke Floyd, director of children services for Stewpot Community Services
Some parents have jobs working from home, a separate, difficult juggle, but many are relying on grandparents, aunts, cousins, friends and neighbors to fill in the child care gaps.
Other families are simply uncomfortable with the idea of placing their children in a center during a pandemic, Floyd said, especially knowing the virus has disproportionately taken the lives of Black people. So they’ve done whatever they must, even altering their work life, to keep their kids home.
Floyd and Ainsworth said they have contact with many of the families they’re not serving during this time. They know they can call if they’re in need, Floyd said, “and they do.”
But child services coordinators also recognize there are some children falling through the cracks. Floyd recalled meeting kids over the summer that she’d never seen before while delivering bags of food to apartment complexes where her students live.
“Kids ran to the van. They were like, ‘Can we have a bag?’ And I was like, ‘Where’s your mama?’ ‘I don’t know,’” Floyd said through tears. “I was like, ‘Oh my god. Who are you? What’s your name?’
“They’re lost,” she said. “We help the kids right in front of us, but if you work with children, you’re like, ‘What’s happening to the other kids? Who’s helping them? Who’s checking up on them?’”
Onlookers are quick to blame parents, she added, but a longstanding lack of access to affordable childcare and the drop in unemployment benefits in August have put some working parents, especially those without family support, in impossible situations.
“If I am doing everything I can for my children to survive, unfortunately sometimes I’m going to have to leave them,” she said.
Anna Wolfe
Left/top: Some of Jackson Public Schools’ fourth, fifth and sixth graders conduct their virtual learning from a classroom inside the Boys and Girls Club Capitol Street unit on Sept. 21, 2020. Right/bottom: Johnathan Thomas, a construction estimator for the Mississippi Department of Transportation, a Club volunteer and dad, oversees the class. When he first offered to facilitate, he thought he could use the time to complete his work, but a student in his class lacked a laptop and was conducting her lessons paper packets, so he’s letting her use his computer. He’ll work in the evenings to make up for it.
“I think JPS kids are well-adapted … The ones that go here, I think they’re pretty much well-rounded, well-disciplined kids … Everyone’s respectful and that’s all I can really ask for,” Thomas said.
Jackson Public Schools is still offering breakfast and lunch to students during the closures, which has been a big help for the private centers. But the district isn’t otherwise subsidizing these programs, Ainsworth said, leaving most of the physical responsibilities that usually fall on public schools — staffing, sanitizing and keeping the lights on — to a patchwork of community partners.
“School is a safe place for many of our students and not being able to be in that safe place and be around friends and share experiences and that whole social aspect of schooling has all of our hearts heavy,” said Bobby Brown, principal at Jim Hill High School in west Jackson.
Jackson’s youngest virtual learners
Even students who secured devices to use for distance learning have had trouble accessing their classes.
“We kinda have trouble getting into WiFi and stuff because it kinda shut down sometimes and we have to wait for a few minutes,” Keiyana, a fifth grader at Casey Elementary School, told Mississippi Today. “One time I missed class because of that.”
Khamiya, the 7-year-old, said doing all her schoolwork on the computer makes her tired and her hands ache.
“I don’t like online. I want to learn in the classroom. I like it (in-person) but I don’t want to get corona,” Khamiya said. “Whoever made it (the virus), I don’t know who made it, but they should have never made it.”
Kieyana, who attends the Boys and Girls Club Sykes unit in south Jackson, said virtual class is different in one way that adults might not expect: She said her teachers are less likely to yell at students over video calls “because they know that you’ll tell.” Keiyana is a good student; she said she’s getting all A’s and especially likes math and science.
When she grows up, she wants to be a pediatrician, a perfect mix of her favorite school subjects and her love of helping care for babies. She said she wishes her school had a gym like the one she plays in at the Club and that her teachers “would stop yelling every now and then.”
Top childhood development experts aren’t as worried about what the impact of COVID-19 and distance learning will be on a child’s ability to keep up with school curriculum. Susan Buttross, a professor of child development at University of Mississippi Medical Center heading up the Mississippi Thrive! Child Health Development Project, said she’s more concerned with the loss of social connections and positive adult reinforcement.
“It’s not that we think kids can’t learn in distance learning,” Buttross said. “People are struggling with making enough money to survive. They’re struggling with so many other social determinants of health, being able to access the right kind of food, and jobs and housing and all of that. So many times, the primary caregiver at home is not equipped to then be the teacher too.”
Anxiety surrounding the virus and grief over a death in the family only compounds the chronic stress children living in poverty already endure. Fleeting stress is normal, Buttross explained, but toxic stress, when a child is constantly on high alert and their stress response system becomes overwhelmed, can hinder their brain development and wreak havoc on their health.
Research shows that the toxic stress of poverty — resulting from economic hardships, racial discrimination, deaths of loved ones or living in an area where violence is prevalent, for example — affects the part of the brain used for decision-making.
Khamiya said her family recently chose to move into a new apartment complex in west Jackson that they thought was in a safer neighborhood.
“We’ve been talking about community. It’s the area where people work and play,” Khamiya said, then she answered how she felt about her west Jackson community: “It’s good, but I don’t like how be people be shooting and killing people.”
The location of prominent community service agencies, west Jackson also has a higher concentration of homeless people than other parts of the city, and therefore higher visibility to someone like Khamiya.
“Do you ever feel bad for homeless people?” she asked this reporter. “I got feeling sad because they need money. They need a house. They need to feel safe.”
Anna Wolfe
Khamiya, a second grader who attends Stewpot Community Services’ youth program, gets some fresh air after finishing her virtual lessons for the day on Sept. 24, 2020. When she grows up, Kamiyah said she wants to perform dance and that one of her biggest goals is to own her own car.
Not only are Black Mississippians disproportionately impacted by the nation’s wealth imbalance — three times more likely to live in poverty than whites — they’re also grieving at a higher rate due to converging national crises.
Almost one-third of Black Americans said in a Washington Post-Ipsos survey that they personally knew someone who had died from COVID-19 — compared to less than 10 percent of whites — which coupled with a national spotlight on policy brutality has spawned a bereavement crisis in Black America, Marissa Evans writes in a recent The Atlantic article.
A pair of siblings in Floyd’s program lost their mom in June. Floyd said she was in her thirties and died in her sleep. She didn’t think the mother had been sick.
Another former student, not even 20-years-old, took his own life this summer after becoming entangled in the criminal justice system.
Right as the pandemic began, Stewpot’s bus driver died from cancer. The kids were heartbroken. And they couldn’t have a memorial service due to social distancing.
Anna Wolfe
Elementary school kids conducting their virtual learning from the Boys and Girls Club Capitol Street unit play with fake money they crafted out of strips of notebook paper. Kelvi, center, said she wants to be a cook when she grows up, but quickly clarifies that she doesn’t want to pay bills. “It’s too hard,” she said.
“People can’t properly grieve right now,” Floyd said. “It’s almost like, you have to just keep moving the same way you were before because if you sit still and think about it, you’re going to lose it.”
But researchers working on toxic stress have also identified the ways to bolster resiliency for kids facing adversity.
“The one factor that keeps coming out is having one adult in their life who is positive, a ray of sunshine for them,” Buttross said. “One person who encourages them and helps them along … Somebody out there who says, ‘You’re good. You’re smart. You’re awesome. You can do something.’”
“It might not be a parent,” she added. “It might be a grandparent or a teacher.”
Or a volunteer at the after-school program.
Ainsworth, the local Boys and Girls Club CEO, said she herself grew up in government housing with a single mom and eight siblings in Norfolk, Virginia.
“My four blocks of the world did not define who I was and who I was going to be. That’s my desire for my Boys and Girls Club babies,” Ainsworth said. “I need them to know that this situation that you’re in right now, it may be bleak. But if we look to your future, we keep exposing you (to opportunity) … through workforce development, college tours, and those things, the sky is the limit for you too.”
At work and play
Simultaneously, the pandemic has also produced a flood of resources and people called to help.
“Hopefully those people that are in need realize that there is almost an influx of support right now,” Floyd said.
This extends beyond the help that has come with federal pandemic relief packages, such as large investments in internet connectivity and devices for school children, increased food and unemployment benefits and extra money for housing assistance.
Jackson Public Schools received a nearly 70% increase in its annual McKinney-Vento grant to serve homeless students, some of whom also receive services at Stewpot. Faith Strong, the district’s coordinator for homeless services, said she hopes to hire more social workers who can work more directly to address individual students’ needs.
The Mississippi Food Network partnered with the district to distribute family food boxes with enough fresh and frozen foods to last a family several days. The Boys and Girls Club, the City of Jackson and Meals on Wheels partnered initially and delivered roughly 20,000 meals across the city.
“There were just churches with lines out in front of them handing out boxes to whoever showed up,” Floyd said. “I’ve been proud to watch as it’s happened.”
Even before the pandemic hit, Dole Packaged Foods, a subsidiary one of the world’s largest fruit and vegetable producers headquartered in California, chose Jackson as the first city it would bring its Sunshine for All program aimed at fighting food insecurity. The company called Mississippi’s capital city one of the largest food deserts in the nation. Dole partnered with the Boys and Girls Club and has been hosting a farmer’s market at the Capitol Street unit, where people can purchase fresh produce from local Footprint Farms.
Anna Wolfe
Lakeise Yarn and her mom Ebony volunteer at Dole Packaged Food’s Saturday farmer’s market at the Boys and Girls Club Capitol Street unit. On Sept. 12, 2020, the local partners served free hotdogs and smoothies to passersby in west Jackson. Lakeise has also participated in Dole’s cooking camp and said she’s enjoyed getting to explore new foods.
“Me and my daughter have really benefitted from being able to come and give back on a Saturday, as well as the meals. It has been a big help to me, cause I’m a single parent,” said Ebony Yarn, a Club employee and volunteer. “I fall in the gap where I make too much to get assistance but then I don’t make enough, per se, to handle everything I need to do.”
Dole is also supporting local food hub Up in Farms’ Farm-to-Table Training Center and providing 1,000 meals to the needy; launching a virtual cooking camp that teaches kids about nutrition and cooking; and building community gardens at Boys and Girls Club locations.
“It’s truly unfair that the kids here in Jackson are limited in fresh fruits and vegetables or opportunities to go into a store and get it and it just came from the vine,” Ainsworth said, “but yet if they go down the street to Madison County, the food is being washed as it’s set down, you know? It’s fresh.”
The poverty rate in Jackson is about eight times higher than the 3.3% poverty rate in the city of Madison. For Ainsworth, these food programs are about more than nutrition.
“What I want to do is make sure that we are exposing our kids to knowing that you are worthy of any and everything that you desire,” she said.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Joe Biden speaks to his supporters during an event at Tougaloo College’s Kroger Gymnasium on March 8, 2020.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday endorsed Mississippi U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy.
“A lifelong Mississippian, Mike Espy has spent his career working to improve the lives of Mississippi’s working families,” Biden said. “From his times as the first Black congressman from Mississippi since Reconstruction to his critical leadership as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to his role helping to build a strong rural economy across the South, Mike Espy has the experience to move Mississippi forward.”
Espy said: “Joe Biden unites and heals. He has dignity and empathy. He is the leader our country needs right now to move forward … I look forward to working with President Biden and Vice President Harris to increase opportunities for all Mississippians.”
Espy is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who defeated Espy in a special election for the Senate seat in 2018. Hyde-Smith is a close ally of President Donald Trump and he aided her 2018 campaign with in-person rallies in Tupelo and Biloxi just before her runoff with Espy.
Espy’s endorsements this cycle include the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Congressional Black Caucus PAC, Collective PAC and Stacey Abrams, Rep. Karen Bass, Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Hyde-Smith’s endorsements include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Huck PAC, Mississippi Manufacturers Association, National Rifle Association and National Right to Life Committee.
Dramatic political polarization. Rising anxiety and depression. An uptick in teen suicide rates. Misinformation that spreads like wildfire.
The common denominator of all these phenomena is that they’re fueled in part by our seemingly innocuous participation in digital social networking. But how can simple acts like sharing photos and articles, reading the news, and connecting with friends have such destructive consequences?
These are the questions explored in the new Netflix docu-drama The Social Dilemma. Directed by Jeff Orlowski, it features several former Big Tech employees speaking out against the products they once upon a time helped build. Their reflections are interspersed with scenes from a family whose two youngest children are struggling with social media addiction and its side effects. There are also news clips from the last several years where reporters decry the technology and report on some of its nefarious impacts.
Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist who co-founded the Center for Humane Technology (CHT) and has become a crusader for ethical tech, is a central figure in the movie. “When you look around you it feels like the world is going crazy,” he says near the beginning. “You have to ask yourself, is this normal? Or have we all fallen under some kind of spell?”
Also featured are Aza Raskin, who co-founded CHT with Harris, Justin Rosenstein, who co-founded Asana and is credited with having created Facebook’s “like” button, former Pinterest president Tim Kendall, and writer and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier. They and other experts talk about the way social media gets people “hooked” by exploiting the brain’s dopamine response and using machine learning algorithms to serve up the customized content most likely to keep each person scrolling/watching/clicking.
The movie veers into territory explored by its 2019 predecessor The Great Hack—which dove into the Cambridge Analytica scandal and detailed how psychometric profiles of Facebook users helped manipulate their political leanings—by having its experts talk about the billions of data points that tech companies are constantly collecting about us. “Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded,” says Jeff Siebert, a former exec at Twitter. The intelligence gleaned from those actions is then used in conjunction with our own psychological weaknesses to get us to watch more videos, share more content, see more ads, and continue driving Big Tech’s money-making engine.
“It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product,” says Lanier. “That’s the only thing there is for them to make money from: changing what you do, how you think, who you are.” The elusive “they” that Lanier and other ex-techies refer to is personified in the film by three t-shirt clad engineers working tirelessly in a control room to keep peoples’ attention on their phones at all costs.
Computer processing power, a former Nvidia product manager points out, has increased exponentially just in the last 20 years; but meanwhile, the human brain hasn’t evolved beyond the same capacity it’s had for hundreds of years. The point of this comparison seems to be that if we’re in a humans vs. computers showdown, we humans haven’t got a fighting chance.
But are we in a humans vs. computers showdown? Are the companies behind our screens really so insidious as the evil control room engineers imply, aiming to turn us all into mindless robots who are slaves to our lizard-brain impulses? Even if our brain chemistry is being exploited by the design of tools like Facebook and YouTube, doesn’t personal responsibility kick in at some point?
The Social Dilemma is a powerful, well-made film that exposes social media’s ills in a raw and immediate way. It’s a much-needed call for government regulation and for an actionable ethical reckoning within the tech industry itself.
But it overdramatizes Big Tech’s intent—these are, after all, for-profit companies who have created demand-driven products—and under-credits social media users. Yes, we fall prey to our innate need for connection and approval, and we’ll always have a propensity to become addicted to things that make us feel good. But we’re still responsible for and in control of our own choices.
What we’re seeing with social media right now is a cycle that’s common with new technologies. For the first few years of social media’s existence, we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now it’s on a nosedive to the other end of the spectrum—we’re condemning it and focusing on its ills and unintended consequences. The next phase is to find some kind of balance, most likely through adjustments in design and, possibly, regulation.
“The way the technology works is not a law of physics. It’s not set in stone. These are choices that human beings like myself have been making, and human beings can change those technologies,” says Rosenstein.
The issue with social media is that it’s going to be a lot trickier to fix than, say, adding seatbelts and air bags to cars. The sheer size and reach of these tools, and the way in which they overlap with issues of freedom of speech and privacy—not to mention how they’ve changed the way humans interact—means it will likely take a lot of trial and error to come out with tools that feel good for us to use without being addicting, give us only true, unbiased information in a way that’s engaging without preying on our emotions, and allow us to share content and experiences while preventing misinformation and hate speech.
In the most recent episode of his podcast Making Sense, Sam Harris talks to Tristan Harris about the movie and its implications. Tristan says, “While we’ve all been looking out for the moment when AI would overwhelm human strengths—when would we get the Singularity, when would AI take our jobs, when would it be smarter than humans—we missed this much much earlier point when technology didn’t overwhelm human strengths, but it undermined human weaknesses.”
It’s up to tech companies to re-design their products in more ethical ways to stop exploiting our weaknesses. But it’s up to us to demand that they do so, be aware of these weaknesses, and resist becoming cogs in the machine.
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn, left, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann speak after Gov. Tate Reeves press conference in Jackson on Thursday, May 7, 2020.
The Mississippi Legislature will reconvene at 10 a.m. Thursday and is expected to remain in session Friday for what will be the last two days of the 2020 session, unless lawmakers opt to again extend the session.
Legislative sources, including House Pro-Tem Jason White, confirmed that lawmakers will reconvene Thursday to deal with funding issues related to the $1.25 billion the state received earlier this year in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds.
Federal law mandates that the CARES Act funds be spent by the end of the year. Earlier this year, the Legislature earmarked those funds in a number of areas, including grants to help small businesses impacted by COVID-19, expanding internet access and providing aid to health care providers.
One of the primary reasons the Legislature is returning, House Speaker Philip Gunn and other legislative leaders said in recent weeks, is to determine what funds have been spent and whether some of the funds might need to re-allocated to other programs.
For instance, not all of the $300 million allocated earlier this year for small business grants will not be spent.
Gunn said he expects the Legislature to keep things “focused, very narrow.”
“Every time we return, everybody wants us to do everything, those who didn’t get their bills passed want to try it again,” Gunn said last week. “I have talked with the lieutenant governor, and we are aware of some other issues out there, that are CARES related but don’t necessarily have to do with the expenditure of money. We are going to evaluate where we designated spending back in June, determine how many of those dollars have been spent and do we want to move some of those dollars around, to get the maximum return.”
Many of the programs had provisions diverting any funds not spent by late in the year to the state’s Unemployment Trust Fund, which has been depleted as the number of the state’s unemployed skyrocketed during the coronavirus.
Jackie Turner, executive director of the Mississippi Employment Security Department, said the fund had $706 million in it in early March and was considered one of the most well funded unemployment trust funds in the nation. Now it is at $422.9 million, which includes $181 million the Legislature diverted to the program in June, Turner recently told legislative leaders.
The fund would be “extremely, dangerously low” if not for the infusion of funds from the Legislature earlier this year, Turner said. Taxes on businesses fund the trust fund and might have to be increased at some point to replenish the fund unless the Legislature diverts other sources of revenue. At the time the Legislature pumped $181 million in CARES Act funds into the trust fund earlier this year, Turner and Gov. Tate Reeves were advocating for the Legislature to divert $500 million into the program.
There is a possibility that lawmakers will look at other areas of need related to the coronavirus – such as a salary supplement for font-line health care providers.
The 2020 legislative session was scheduled to end in April before lawmakers opted to extend it to deal with coronavirus-related issues. Two legislative days remain on that extension, but legislators could by a two-thirds vote opt to provide themselves more days to meet, though, leaders have said that is not likely.
