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Comment by joenot443 | Hacker News Reader

Wow - what a dull hit job. It starts off tame but it isn’t long before the author makes her position clear: this gathering of families is a Bad Thing and represents a risk to American democracy and it’s important to remember that the only reason people would ever celebrate southern legacy is racism.

If you check out any of her other publications it’s not hard to find a pattern.

Who reads this stuff? Self assured coastal folks who are looking to justify their hatred of rural Americans? This piece wasn’t written to educate or inform, just further stoke derision.

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I didn't get that at all. Many of the topics covered later in the article are aren't a hit job, they are a reality and cover an underlying tone of the gathering. It seems like an amazing tradition and frankly a pretty cool thing. But, make no mistake, this is rural Mississippi we're talking about there.

There are some uncomfortable truths.

I'm not from Mississippi, but from blue-collar Kansas. I think there can be something to celebrating a tradition of "white-trashiness" (ha ha) that is devoid of any racist over(under?)tones (Kansas though was of course a "free-state", so that legacy would not be a contributing factor to any perceived racism).

Now that my sister and I are older, have left our roots, become (I hope) cosmopolitan, we can laugh about growing up on "shit-on-shingles" and meat-loaf sandwiches (and butter/sugar sandwiches, mayonnaise sandwiches, Jiffy corn muffins...).

There is a part of me that could celebrate that. (Although when I stop and reflect, when the wife and I raised our own kids we kind of dispensed with our own "traditions" in favor of newly created ones — except for shit-on-shingles maybe once a year.)

There definitely is something great about these traditions, family, food etc. The article does a great job covering it. I was raised in the south, mostly southern Louisiana, and make no mistake many of these events are not "white-trashiness" celebrations. Owners of these cabins and the traditions that surround them are decidedly run, managed, and participated mostly by the "ruling families" of the rural south. And like I said, there are a lot of uncomfortable truths that accompany those families. It definitely is easy for "coastal elites" to look at this as simply a gathering of racists, but that paints an enormously broad brush.

I'm definitely not going to sit here and decry the tradition of the events, because they are a great time. But at the same time, I grew up around a lot of these families and I know what's up. The rural areas of the south are absolutely no different than the 1950s other than federal law.

I'm in rural Mississippi and around this area we have people of all shapes, sizes, and colors. We get along quite well. I don't know where this racist part of the state is. It's not the 1950s anymore.

2 of the 3 Black attendants interview in this piece don't interact with the white attendants beyond a professional level. One is there to race horses, once that's over he doesn't stick around. The other is a homecare nurse who only came to look after her patient but was worried about her own safety outside the cabin.

You may not like it but the subtext was clearly there.

> this is rural Mississippi we're talking about

Sounds like you might have as many biases as you presume that they have.

There is no way to ignore the history of a place. It should be remembered, because, when people forget history, they end up repeating it, which would be terrible in this specific case.

I grew up in a racist country, Brazil. We don't talk much about it, we don't have laws singling out races, and we are, on paper, very egalitarian, but make no mistake: existing while dark-skinned (Brazilians have and are aware of all shades of brown - I'm a very white Caucasian, my first wife was Moorish-Italian, our son is a mix) will get you searched by security and kicked out of places. I was caught doing things that would land anyone darker than me, my son included, in jail. I am aware of my privilege, even if I wasn't while growing up.

It's everyone's responsibility not to repeat these errors and to do our best to break the cycles that perpetuate them.

There is a world of difference between remembering the past and refusing to see people outside of a historic and antiquated context.

OP is doing to these rural Mississippians what OP is accusing them of doing, and the article even mentions at the end that there was no problems. The only problems, ironically, are coming from others who are typecasting these southerners.

Does every article about an event have to bring up the sordid history of the place it happens? Is Burning Man about the Mexican American War, massacred natives and Chinese railroad workers?

Fairgoers wear that "sordid history" on their sleeves, and keep it alive. Why not talk about that?

How so? Nothing in there program seemed racial or political.

They do mention confederate flags on display, which is hard to imagine not being seen as political if not racial even in the South in 2023.

They also mentioned playing the song Dixie during the nightly sing-along

>Who reads this stuff? Self assured coastal folks who are looking to justify their hatred of rural Americans? This piece wasn’t written to educate or inform, just further stoke derision.

If you want to minimize stoking derision look inwards first before you look outwards. It seems clear from what I quoted you're fine with derision as long as it's against the groups you don't like but not the other way around. Which is the real problem in america and not some new yorker article.

you only had to read to the end.

> When she inherits her share, Derrick will own it with her, becoming the first owner of color in the cabin’s history.

if it were such a bad thing, why celebrate integration?

because it isn’t a bad thing. it is a complex thing. good and bad. just like the individual from la was called out for calling women “bitches,” and was corrected to call them “ladies.”

it is a piece in the new yorker. it is a hit piece in the same way that one is attacked when they bump their head on a low doorway. if one were expecting an objective piece, one ought to have known better.

but you didn’t even bump your head. you only noticed you were about to.

…so it was fear that prompted your outburst?

Politics doesn't come into this story at all until about halfway through, when it discusses how Reagan brought politics to this fair and started talking about his platform designed to get white rural voters to the polls. The entire first half of the article is all about what a warm, wholesome community springs up for a week.

I grew up in New Orleans and I think it's pretty damn important to discuss how fucked up and racist the South is. It's not gonna get any better if we keep on sweeping it under the rug and ignoring it like it seems you want to.

If you’re offended by a piece that suggests it’s odd to have a week-long all white get-together in a state where 36% of the population is black, I’d suggest the piece and the author’s supposed bias are not the issue.

Why, should every event have demographics that perfectly mirror state demographics?

This is the same state that hosts "Black Spring Break" and I haven't heard anyone complain about the lack of diversity or racial overtones of that event.

I didn't say race doesn't matter, I responded to this comment:

> If you’re offended by a piece that suggests it’s odd to have a week-long all white get-together in a state where 36% of the population is black

Which wrt the history of the fair, is context-free.

Probably more White people attending "Black Spring Break" than Black people attending this event.

here's a tldr why race matters in the context of the neshoba county fair:

this is the same county where chaney, schwerner, and goodman were murdered. at the fair that year, the kkk dropped pamphlets from an airplane in response to their murder. clearly targeting the fair audience. this was during the freedom summer of 1964 if you know what that is?

ronald reagan did a presidential campaign speech at the fair. a presidential candidate speaking there was unheard of at the time, but he was clearly following the "southern strategy". he proclaimed his belief in states rights, which has been a dog whistle since the civil war. the fair is a popular place for dog whistle political speeches.

there are racial dynamics about who is allowed at the fair. none of the cabins are owned by black people. the owners of cabins are largely the ruling class in mississippi. during the day, spaces within the fair are segregated. most black people at the fair are workers or horse racers, etc.

there are more reasons why race matters, but i have to work. you should read the article.

They shoulnd't. But it's silly to pretend that context and history don't matter.

This is a state where white people historically enslaved black people, where many of the white residents are descends of slave owners, and many of the black people are descendants of the enslaved. This is hours from where black 14-year old Emmett Till was tortured and murdered by a group of white people for the crime of (allegedly) whistling at a white woman.

This is a state and county where the Klan was active and murdering civil rights workers in the 60s, and enforced Jim Crow Laws that made black people legally second class citizens until the voting rights act of 1965. This is a state where a Jim Crow Era voting restriction that disproportionately disenfranchised black voters was just struck down this year[1] by a very conservative supreme court.

This is a state that celebrated the confederacy - an institution that existed for the purpose of enslaving black people - in its very state flag until 2020.

I could of course go on, but you get the picture.

Comments like yours ignore the reality and impact of this history and context.

When a state where the white population has a history of around 200 years of first enslaving, and then attempting to subjugate the black population, it's worth pointing out (as the article does) that perhaps it's a little suspicious that they've now created a de facto whites only get-together.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/04/mississippis...

> it's a little suspicious that they've now created a de facto whites only get-together

except for the fact racially biased events exist in all states and nations

unless you can say something specific about the fair, recounting state history isn't paying heed to context, it's pure speculation. I didn't "ignore history and context", I had add little to say about it that was relevant.

in fact, racial history could lead to events being white biased, purely because they are white biased (ie races choose not to mix) without any other requirement.

> This is a state where white people historically enslaved black people, where many of the white residents are descends of slave owners, and many of the black people are descendants of the enslaved.

What does “many” mean? I would think that the vast majority of black people in this state are descendant of slaves while a minority of whites are descendant of slave owners because the slave owners were the upper class.

Or else: since you have 32 great-great-great grandparents[1] I guess it gets exponentially more likely to be “descended from” someone the further back you go, but that doesn't seem to tell us much.

[1] I guess these might not be 32 distinct individuals though due to distant inbreeding

Estimates of slave ownership at the household level range from about 20 to 30% of white Southerners. (You'll see much lower numbers that try to mislead by a) giving the percentage against the entire US, including free states and b) by only counting the head of a household as the official "owner", not their spouse/children).

That qualifies as "many" in my book, and pushes slave ownership well into parts of the middle class.

(Slave labor was sometimes rented out to non-owners, as well.)

Fair point. Thanks for informing me.

I wouldn't think it's "odd" - some things grow out of traditions that are specific to a specific ethnic or cultural group. It's fair to point out their roots and it'd be interesting, perhaps, if the group worked to be more inclusive and teach this past as a way to educate kids not to make the same mistakes their grandparents made.

Even if those mistakes had the positive side-effect of creating a nice family event.

So you are saying this grew out of a tradition that is specific to some ethnic group. Tell me what is the "tradition" in the south that excluded black people while white people are having a party?

The answer might give you some clues.

I understand the context it came from and the horrific things that ethnic group has done, but this specific event seems like an unintended side effect, and one that can become a positive one, if they decide to use it in an inclusive way.

Would you be think it’s odd if there are week long all black get togethers in Mississippi? Why the double standard?

lol the writer is from mississippi. we're forced to reckon with race there, unlike most places, hence we write about it.

there is a long racist history at the fair. it's important to know about that history.

You think the New Yorker would have published this article without bringing race into a completely unracist thing?

no, they wouldn't publish it without exploring the racial dynamics, because race is central to understanding the neshoba county fair. therefore, they wouldn't publish it because it wouldn't be interesting to read.

> a completely unracist thing

you clearly do not know what you're talking about.

To the New Yorker's demographic, race is central to everything. They feed an audience who fetishizes finding racism in the most obscure nooks and crannies of society. The piece is written to be pure self-masturbatory confirmation of "good" values for people who live in wealthy enclaves of coastal urban centers.

And is the New Yorker demographic in the room with us right now?

> you clearly do not know what you're talking about.

Not everything is racist. Take a lap.

The article mostly was spent talking about how amazing an event this was.

There's a few paragraphs in the middle talking about race, which I assume you're taking issue with, starting with "Whenever I asked fairgoers about race...".

The article is a look at a Southern cultural event with a long history. The history of southern culture also includes racism, and so no examination of it would be complete without a look at racial dynamics in play.

This is just simply not a hit piece; it's just a thorough writeup.

If you come from the conservative school of thought of, "Talking about race is itself racist", I can see how you might take issue with this article. Most sane and reasonable people do not come from that school of thought.

Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

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