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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI wish you success in terms of what is best for ALL the people of Mississippi. In your inaugural address on January 14, you promised just that. You promised it to the people of Mississippi, you promised it to God, and you invoked God\u2019s help in accomplishing your goals. I\u2019m sure you mean \u201cGod\u201d in a generic sense, as many Mississippians see Deity differently from each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You said that Mississippi has a \u201cloving culture that underpins our quality of life,\u201d that \u201ca culture of love and kinship has knitted Mississippi families together, and tied them to each other for ages,\u201d that you \u201cwill defend that culture against the erosion that frays societies,\u201d and that you \u201cwill work to make sure our state government\u2019s functions reflect the love we have for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, there\u2019s a lot of love in Mississippi, but there\u2019s a lot of injustice, too. And there are very, very dark times in our history that we\u2019d better not forget or gloss over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m thankful to know that you will be working for great jobs for everyone. It\u2019s wonderful that our Governor will be working for equal employment opportunities for everyone: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, the old, the young, the handicapped, males, females, the transgendered, the gay, the straight, the Muslim, the Jew, the Christian, the atheist. I know we\u2019re on the same page. Otherwise you wouldn\u2019t have said, \u201cIt must be the mission of our government to open the doors of generational opportunity to more people in our state, north and south, man and woman, black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m also glad you will be looking out for our foster children, our special needs children, and those who are incarcerated. That is exactly what love calls for, and clearly you are committed to love\u2014God\u2019s love, no less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You said that one of your missions is to give us more national board-certified teachers per capita than any state in the nation: \u201cIt is a goal we can achieve\u2014and one worth achieving. We have done it before and we can do it again.\u201d I had no idea we\u2019d ever been first in that. I\u2019d love to know when. Was it under Governor William Winters\u2019 (D) leadership, the \u201cEducation Governor\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You invoked the names of former Governors Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant, two bastions of equality and justice. I was once told by a very honest person that they actually heard Governor Barbour say that he could take care of the mentally ill in Mississippi for twenty-five dollars a day each. How? By putting them in jail. And you and Governor Bryant have walked in lock-step with our current President who brags openly about how he can get away with grabbing a woman by her p***y or killing someone in broad daylight, and that he\u2019s never had to ask God for forgiveness for anything. I assure you that I\u2019ll sleep better knowing you\u2019re at the helm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Mississippi\u2019s future is bright, because you\u2019ve pledged to continue doing all those things that almost no Governor has done in the past, and God is going to help you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m reminded of lyrics from one of Mississippi\u2019s well-deserving members of the Songwriters\u2019 Hall of Fame, Jim Weatherly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mississippi, this is your song, We won\u2019t change for the better by forgetting our past, and if we keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, to paraphrase William Faulkner, the past will never be past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Governor Reeves, I truly hope you will lead Mississippi to higher ground. I fear that your words are more \u201csounding brass and tinkling cymbals.\u201d I\u2019d love to be surprised. Surprise me. Please. Please, please, please, please, PLEASE SURPRISE ME!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n . . . and that\u2019s the view from The Balcony. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Governor Reeves: Congratulations on being elected as Mississippi\u2019s next Governor. In full disclosure, I did not vote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[14645,5,10286,6883,10878],"class_list":["post-83601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-governor","tag-mississippi","tag-randy-weeks","tag-tate-reeves","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
sung for all the righteous people
who don\u2019t let you forget
when you were wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n