Asklemmy

A few reasons (which I pulled out of my ass. I'm not a social scientist. I am a person who fled some pretty ass backwards areas in the US):

1. Feelings of hopelessness. Maybe it's the people in power. Maybe it's the culture. Seeing cops act a fool and get zero punishment, or voting and watching some corrupt folks refuse to accept the results really does a number on people.

2. Allowing morons in charge. During the pandemic, I watched the neighboring state put a lot of COVID denial policies in place. Psychopaths were literally running into hospitals making demands. Healthcare professionals left to work somewhere less hostile. Expand that to other industries, groups of people. You now have real smart people who are leaving - shrinking the conversation pool even more. I didn't even bring up police.

3. General culture. I was told to "Go back home" or "This place isn't for you" just walking around living my life. That country song "This won't happen in a small town" which is filled with inaccuracies just strengthens the belief that small towns are for a certain "type" of person.

There's a lot of other factors.

So you have all those issues, followed by being pretty low/the lowest in ranking for many things like education and quality of life.

The shining stars are college towns who are much more active at change. But I'm not going to expect much

Because no one expects any better of them. Everyone expects Alabama to be full of KKK cousin-fuckers. The result is that it's only notable when they aren't.

You'd basically need to invade the state to fix it.

Racism in Alabama and Mississippi is normalized and as such, is ignored by the media

This is the best summary I could come up with:

He told CNN he ran for office in 2020 to serve the fewer than 300 residents of Newbern, to connect them to help if they didn’t have enough food or to spread information on staying healthy in the Covid pandemic.

But within weeks of his win, and before he got to take his oath of office, Braxton says he was dethroned in a secret scheme orchestrated by the former leadership, who he says did not want to hand over power to a Black mayor who was planning to appoint new council members.

Auburn University’s School of Architecture set up an off-campus studio years ago and its design-build program is evident in an airy library created in a former bank building, a fire station and a community town hall.

Late last month, cobwebs covered the door of the town hall, built from cypress and steel to give what the architects called a “physical and psychological weight to the civic building.”

“To prevent Braxton from appointing a majority black Town council, the Defendants … agreed to hold a secret meeting and adopt resolutions to conduct a special election,” the lawsuit alleges.

He says he still tried to do the job of mayor, though he claimed he was not allowed in to assist setting up voting machines for the November 2022 midterm elections – a point disputed by his opponents.

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If only John Brown had been successful, the country and the world would have been a better place.

Probably because it's expected, it's happening "somewhere else" to "minorities," and the people being racist aren't always using slurs. Same reason news outlets don't really report on crime in known high-crime areas. Many people do not understand that these issues also affect them because it normalizes racist behavior, which in turn hurts the economy.

Because it's normal for people who live there, I would venture that a lot of the parents either don't have a phone and only watch TV, and their kids follow their parents example. (Even when literally everyone living outside the state has a polar opposite belief)

If I had to hazard a guess people are becoming desensitized to all of the doom and gloom because it keeps being shoved in our face for advertising dollars by mainstream media.

People who grew up in left leaning cities refuse to believe me when I point it out. Just flat out refuse.

Here's another incident I posted once already. I wish this stuff was national news.

https://www.alreporter.com/2023/08/03/opinion-the-montgomery-mayoral-race-a-race-about-race-again/

I'm not American but if I had to guess its because it's expected. It's the same reason we don't hear about shootings in Chicago.

As a pentagenarian, I don't love the fact that my shit stinks, but I've come to terms with it, and don't expect it to change anytime soon. Same with racism in the South.

The whole thing is fucked up. how can there be a mayor without an election?!