Seriously?

An Associated Press story last week quoted Alabama’s Gov. Republican Robert Bentley, who signed legislation that targets any HispanicLatino who might appear to be in the state illegally.  The law would have kicked every brown kid out of school had a federal court not intervened.  Bentley, not intending to draw guffaws, wondered why his state is being laughed at across the nation.

“Why are we getting all the publicity? I think it has to do with Alabama’s past and the perception that people have of Alabama over the years…and really don’t recognize the amount of progress we’ve made in Alabama over the last 50 to 60 years,” Bentley said.

If you did not know he was serious, it would indeed be a laughing matter.

The AP story focused on why Alabama, so far removed from the border with Mexico, became the epicenter of the fight over immigration.  With one of the smallest population of immigrants in the country, the state that gave us George Wallace standing at the schoolhouse door took the initiative to target a whole group of people with a punitive law so harsh that it is not only harming families but the state’s economy.  Evidently, the state’s hard-working people do not want to pick its crops in the fields, and so they are rotting.  The last time Alabama offended humanity it shattered its own economy, and the state never recovered.

Reading about Alabama’s decision to remain in the dark ages, pun intended, reminded me of a long distance run-in with the governor of that other beacon of a state next door, Mississippi.  Its governor at the time, a leading light named Kirk Fordice, reached across 500 miles from Jackson to Austin to react to a column I wrote in 1992.  I wrote that unless Texas reformed its public school finance system it in the long run would turn into a “giant Mississippi” (which then ranked last in spending on public education and last on per capita state gross domestic product).

I did not think about Fordice until last week, who barely merits more than a wiki search, which of course yielded the same boorish story:

“An outspoken conservative, Fordice advocated tax cuts, the abolishing affirmative action, reductions in the welfare system, expanded capital punishment, tougher prison conditions…(he) alarmed Jewish groups…by referring to America as “a Christian Nation” during a Republican governors’ conference. South Carolina governor Carroll Campbell quickly offered a correction, adding Judeo as a prefix to Christian, but Fordice snapped back (that) he meant what he said.  Fordice later apologized for any offense.  In August 1996, Fordice signed an executive order banning recognition of same-sex marriages…Fordice’s tenure was also roiled by an extramarital affair…which led to his divorce from his wife of 44 years…After leaving office, Fordice married (his sweetheart) but…(they) divorced later….(he) died…at the age of 70.”

So, years into the new millennium, Mississippi is still last in everything.  Nothing has changed, and Alabama, well, Alabama is the same Alabama.  And, try as it might, it will not get the last laugh.

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