NEW: Systemic racism built Mississippi. Gov. Tate Reeves claims it doesn& #39;t exist.

But this isn& #39;t a report about what "both sides are saying."

This is an in-depth look at the facts—which demonstrate the myriad ways in which the governor is wrong. •1 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
The announcement could come as a relief to the 38% of Mississippians who are Black. But around 16% of them won& #39;t have the opportunity to express their gratitude to the governor; they& #39;re systematically disenfranchised due to an 1890 Jim Crow law. •3 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Systemic Racism, a definition: “policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, & that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.” (Cambridge) •4 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Gov. Reeves& #39; pronouncement that systemic racism does not exist comes as the state, with his support, is arguing in federal court that Black residents can& #39;t sue to force the state to ensure Black kids receive the same quality education as white kids. •5 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
"80% of Mississippi’s highest-performing school districts are majority-white & all its failing school districts are majority-Black. ... MS operates 2 types of schools: high-performing schools for white children and failing schools for Black children.” •6 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
"The SPLC noted immense disparities, with the plaintiffs’ Black children attending schools that & #39;lack textbooks, literature, basic supplies, experienced teachers, sports and other extracurricular activities, tutoring programs, and even toilet paper.& #39;" •7 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Reeves’ declaration that systemic racism does not exist in the country also came on the heels of a breakdown in the capital city’s water system, which left residents of 80%-Black Jackson without drinkable running water for a month from Feb-March. •8 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Jackson is a city where potholes go unfilled as state leaders, decade after decade, have refused to invest in the city’s crumbling infrastructure—a decline that began after white residents abandoned the city following public school integration. •9 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
At 99% Black Raines Elementary, which a mother described as "old, dark and gloomy—like a jail," "paint is peeling off the walls, water spots are visible on the ceilings & lunches sometimes have curdled milk & rotten fruit,” a 2017 complaint reads. •12 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
The lawsuit, Williams v. Reeves, notes that only 11% of students at the low-income plaintiffs’ predominantly Black public schools were proficient in reading; but at three wealthier, majority-white schools, 65% of children were proficient in reading. •13 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
The racial disparities in education continue despite the fact that Mississippi enshrined a vow to operate a “uniform system of free public schools” in its 1869 constitution, allowing for its readmittance to the Union as a state after the Civil War. •14 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Gov. James K. Vardaman:

“There& #39;s no use to equivocate or lie about the matter. Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n-ger from politics. Not the ‘ignorant & vicious& #39;...but the n-ger.” •16 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
The group of 130,000 Black Mississippians who are barred from voting by the 1890 Jim Crow law is almost 2x as large as the 66,000-vote-margin by which Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a white Republican, defeated opponent Mike Espy, a Black Democrat, in 2018. •19 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Gov. Reeves says there is no systemic racism in America.

His state is the Blackest in America. Yet 13 white Republicans hold all 8 top elected state offices, both US Senate seats & ¾ House seats.

Mississippi last had a Black US senator in the 1883. •20 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
After poll taxes and literacy tests ended, federal leaders found ways to implement new criminal statutes that would disproportionately target and criminalize Black men, including by hyping up stories of Black crime and waging a "drug war." •22
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
GOP strategist Ken Phillips in 1969: "Nixon’s successful presidential election campaign could point the way toward...a new Republican majority, if Republicans continued to campaign primarily on...racial issues, using coded antiblack rhetoric." •23
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Despite saying systemic racism is not real, Gov. Reeves is no stranger to it. He was a member of Kappa Alpha Order, a fraternity known for wearing blackface, hurling racial epithets at Black students & holding Confederate-themed balls. •26
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
Of course. Gov. Reeves also declared Confederate Heritage Month in April 2020, when 70% of Mississippi& #39;s COVID-19 victims were Black, and again in 2021.

In 2013, he spoke at a neo-Confederate gathering in Vicksburg. •27
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11224/darn-tootin-it-is-gov-tate-reeves-again-declares-confederate-heritage-month-scv-says/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11224/dar...
At a 2020 COVID-19 presser, Reeves would only say he& #39;d been to many "costume parties" when asked if he ever wore the Confederate uniform at a frat party.

Then, MS State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs acknowledged systemic racism in health care. •28 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
“Racism, it has very bad health effects. It worsens cardiovascular problems and other heart issues," the Mississippi State Health Officer, sitting next to Gov. Reeves, said last year.

But Gov. Reeves now falsely claims systemic racism doesn& #39;t exist. •29 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
But most of the Mississippians who marched in Black Lives Matter protests did not claim to “Back the Blue” (unlike many of the insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th who left more than 100 Capitol Police Officers injured and one dead). •32 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
"It’s as if they want to act as if there& #39;s not such a thing as the American dream,” said Gov. Reeves, a wealthy white man born to the founder of a multi-million dollar company & who sends his kids to a $15,000 prep school.

"They& #39;re absolutely wrong." •36 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
White Democrats, known as Dixiecrats, built the state& #39;s Jim Crow foundations. And many white Republicans today rely on those foundations to maintain power.

But systemic racism is bigger than individuals or parties. That& #39;s what makes it systemic! •37 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/systemic-racism-built-mississippi-gov-reeves-says-it-doesnt-exist/">https://www.mississippifreepress.org/11705/sys...
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