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Comment by r2_pilot | Hacker News Reader

Don't consign us here in Mississippi, voting in every election, to not be represented in a democratic society. It's hard enough living here without getting dogpiled by external people who never visit and think that just because our "representatives" are a certain way that everyone here is like them, instead of the messier reality that power structures here are misaligned with the actual population's collective will.

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I lived in Texas, Mississippi, Florida before, so I’m unsure what you mean by not visiting. I didn’t list a state that I hadn’t lived in for at least 3 months. Unfortunately that was 5 years in Mississippi.

Regardless what would you have us do? More autonomy for states? You can’t go out alone, and we have a nice red-blue state now to base a division on.

no, they are saying that by discarding mississippi, you are ignoring like 45%+ of the state that didn't vote for whatever politician you hate. and also you are ignoring the centuries of disenfranchisement that prevents more people from voting against whatever politician you hate. it's not a monolith. mississsippi is the blackest state in the union yet coastal liberals who are supposedly anti-racist are quick to throw out the state.

Having actually lived in Mississippi, I’ve seen the disenfranchisement first hand. But what can we do? We can’t fix Mississippi, they will have to want to fix themselves, so why not let them explore more fully the consequences of their own actions? Mississippi thinks California is keeping them down, then without California they would have to start blaming themselves more.

> then without California they would have to start blaming themselves more

Because blaming a foreign country for your woes just doesn't happen.

You know, we can blame China (another country I've lived in) all we want for our problems, and China definitely blames the US for a lot of its problems...but at the end of the day, the Chinese and the USA don't really have to care what the others think about them.

i'm from there and there are so many people trying to fix it. somehow you lived there so long and didn't realize this fact, bless your heart. (this is helping prove my point btw)

who in mississippi is blaming california for their problems, other than state politicians who think that is effective political rhetoric? all of the voters i know can read past that BS even if we have different political ideology.

idk this is just my experience growing up there and then later studying the south as an academic. we are used to being condescended to.

How is it condescending to say that Mississippi should just do its own thing and we don't have to bother ourselves with their choices? I feel like we are in a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. Whatever we say, or even if we say nothing, will be seen in Mississippi as being condescended to. Just us existing is seen as condescended. This is why we should just give up, we do our thing and they do their thing, if Mississippi is still offended by our existence, we can just ignore them.

So? How's that any different than everyone in Buffalo just having to bend over and take it because NYC and Albany want to do spreadsheets and services instead of factories?

No state is a monolith.

That's exactly the point. It makes no sense to say maybe if New York went off and was its own country it'll finally not be so divided.

I mean it'd be less divided insofar as the minority would be more thoroughly subjugated by the state. No pesky federal government getting in the way. Though that's probably not a good thing.

If there’s a “collective will” then why isn’t the population forcing its collective will on those power structures?

as if the civil rights movement didn't have very significant events take place in mississippi https://bookshop.org/p/books/local-people-the-struggle-for-c...

Right so what’s stopping people from doing it now?

i guess you haven't been seeing the news of all the southerners fighting the redistricting efforts after they gutted the VRA

You mean Southerners like me in Virginia who are actually doing that “fighting” and it’s making absolutely no difference whatsoever

is that who you’re talking about?

I’m literally 10 toes down on the ground trying to do exactly the thing that everybody says should be happening which is democratizing community development and nobody gives a fucking fuck

they will show up when you give them resources but never step up to lead after

I’ve started so many goddamn community things but the second I pull back from them to let others lead nobody picks up the slack

I’m excruciatingly done with over and over and over trying to help people take care of themselves

yeah i'm sure you're doing this: https://mississippitoday.org/2026/05/20/mississippi-redistri...

You can move, trading places with a conservative stuck in a blue state, with assistance because many other people are moving.

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