When you ask someone to describe Mississippi, most people will tell you that Mississippi is known for its Southern hospitality. Mississippians are so charming and they welcome visitors and their own natives with a smile and warm greeting. Mississippi is even known nationally as “the Hospitality State.” And while this holds some truth, I would argue that Mississippi is not as hospitable and welcoming as people like to believe.
Hospitality, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, means “generous and friendly treatment of visitors and guests.” Coming from a community that prides itself on its hospitality and tourism industry, I understand the importance of hospitality fairly well. Mississippi as a whole is certainly hospitable to visitors and guests. One would think this hospitality toward visitors would be mirrored by Mississippians’ hospitality toward one another. However, Mississippi lacks a hospitable nature when it comes to its own citizens.
Why do you think Mississippi is more hospitable to its visitors than some of its residents? We’re more hospitable to visitors because, simply put, they won’t be here long. Those Yankee, liberal thinkers come visit our historic state, but they don’t stay. They leave after their visit and take their beliefs back home with them. Mississippi is hospitable to visitors. And, Mississippians are hospitable to other Mississippians who look like them and think like them.
Mississippi struggles to accept differences and equality. This has been an issue with the state since Reconstruction. Mississippi isn’t hospitable to people with different religious beliefs. Just look at the recent news stories of a practicing Sikh man who was wrongly called a “terrorist” by Mississippi police and then treated unfairly and certainly inhospitably by a Mississippi judge.
Mississippi isn’t hospitable to the LGBT community. Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that do not protect the LGBT community against employment discrimination. Furthermore, Mississippi is only one of 15 states that do not protect the LGBT community from hate crimes. We all know Mississippi’s dark history pertaining to hospitality and openness toward racial minorities and interests. We continue to struggle with those differences today. Mississippi certainly isn’t hospitable to the poor in our state; our leaders implement policies that hold the status quo, instead of working to alleviate poverty.
While the rest of our nation prides itself on being open to and accepting of differences, Mississippi’s hospitality quickly disintegrates at even the slightest hint of difference. Multiple examples abound. In social situations, when I’ve kept my opinions to myself and gone along with the status quo, people have been most welcoming to me. But, just as soon as I or others express our not-so-conservative opinions, we’re immediately told to get out of this state if we don’t like it. Where’s the hospitality in that? A truly hospitable situation would welcome differing views and discussion.
A recent experience with my friends in the Grove also highlights Mississippi’s hospitable double standard. The Grove is supposed to be a place where we show off our Southern hospitality and welcome visitors to our campus. The first time my friends and I set up a tent in the Grove, we apparently took the spot of an alum who had the spot for many years. Instead of politely explaining the situation and asking us to move, the alum gave off this air of entitlement and condescension. Once again I ask, where’s that Mississippi hospitality?
Mississippi can truly embody the hospitality that it markets. Mississippi’s hospitality should not only apply to its visitors but to all of its citizens. All Mississippians, no matter their differences, deserve to feel welcome here. Diversity and difference should be welcomed, instead of condemned. But until that day comes, Mississippi should not consider itself “the Hospitality State.”
Adam Blackwell is a senior public policy leadership major from Natchez.
