Three panelists from across the political spectrum engaged in a lively debate Tuesday night about freedom, whether that means education, reproductive rights or the divide between the haves and the have-nots.
The discussion was part of the Mississippi Humanities Council’s “Ideas on Tap” series, which is holding several panel discussions across the state centering on the question “What does freedom mean to you?”
Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science teacher Chuck Yarborough moderated the event at the Rosenzweig Arts Center, which featured a panel made up of Mississippi University for Women assistant professor of political science Chanley Rainey, District 39 State Rep. Dana McLean (R-Columbus) and District 41 State Rep. Kabir Karriem (D-Columbus).
A major part of the discussion Tuesday night was about education, and how it is both necessary but not necessarily a cure-all for inequality.
McLean said that a major constituent of any kind of freedom had to come back to educational opportunity.
“Education, education, education,” she said. “That’s the best way to get off the poverty rolls. We are a country where you can be anything you want to be. Even in Mississippi, the poorest state in the whole nation, you can be anything you want to be and that can happen through education.”
Rainey pushed back on that, however, pointing out the extra burden that poor students have to bear. She used her husband, who teaches at Aliceville High School in Alabama, as an example.
“He has seen a lot of students who are very smart and work hard, but their families live in really difficult situations,” she said. “It drains them, and it makes it very difficult for them to succeed. … There’s a lot of hopelessness that comes with (poverty) and a lot of violence that’s related to that hopelessness and lack of opportunity.”
Rainey was asked about women’s freedom in the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Women losing the option to end a pregnancy will have serious impacts on their lives, she said.
“I have two children, and I had one of them when I was 17,” she said. “I was very lucky because I had plenty of resources and support, and I was able to finish my education. But there are lots of women who don’t have that.”
McLean said she thought the repeal was the right decision, but the state needs to do more to help new mothers.
“We have to do more now, not just for health care but for everything else,” she said. “Providing early childhood education, I feel we need to have affordable child care. … We can step up and be a great example for the rest of the country on how we do this.”
Rainey said the state also needs to provide more sex education.
“This is also a point where you can think about the importance of education in the role of sex education and the ability of young people to have birth control,” she said. “If we’re not going to allow them later choices, make sure they’re as empowered as possible earlier.”
Karriem said freedom, especially for minorities, was “a work in progress.”
“I think it’s a constant struggle to try to obtain some sense of freedom,” he said. “We can’t take our feet off the gas because there are still some things we need to do and people who are still trying to obtain what freedom means to them.”
Black Americans still struggle for basic rights that white Americans take for granted, Karriem said.
“There are certain things we have to tell our kids, instructions about how to get home when they’re stopped by law enforcement,” he said.
“Our communities are impoverished because we don’t have the necessary things like banking, grocery stores, schools, ways to meet medical needs.”
The past isn’t even past, he said.
“Right now there is a 67-year-old warrant for the woman Emmett Till supposedly whistled at that day,” he said, referencing the gruesome 1955 murder of a teenage boy in Money. “That warrant was never issued because the sheriff supposedly said she had two kids and she didn’t need to be arrested since her husband was already being investigated. That’s privilege. If that was anybody else, they would have been arrested.”
Yarborough, at the end of the evening, said he thought the event had provoked some thoughtful discussion.
“There are political leaders and business leaders focused on these issues, and now there are about two dozen people in this room who I hope are focused on them, if they haven’t been before,” he said. “The challenge is ours. The problems are ours.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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