"Oh I wish I was in de lan' of cotten..."

but, you can marry your cousin...

LOL
I think a couple of folks I see in the WalMart might have...

I shop at wally's, but I look like manson.

marilyn more than charlie, I think...

(I have no female cousins)

I believe that any state laws outlawing inter-marriage between races has already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supremes. Love vs the Commonwealth of Virginia, if memory serves. Sometime in the 1940s.

Still, that's an eye-popping poll.

Oh, I wish I was in de land of cotton
Whuppin' slaves and feelin' rotten.
Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland,
(With profound thanx to Tom Lehrer.)

It was Loving v. Virginia

You can take the right to act away from the bigot, but you cannot make him reason.

Is this an indictment of republican voters or the population of Mississippi in general?

In any case, the fact that ANY group of people would think interracial marriage should be illegal is pitiful.

I think this is really less about people in Mississippi than it is about white people in general. Although there is, perhaps, more residual racism in the Old South (and we have no way of knowing that), i strongly suspect that a great many white boys in northern states feel the same way, although they might not be as honest about it.

In Delaware (at least when I was in school), the old law prohibited marriage between white people and other folks of different shades, as opposed to all inter-shade marriages (e. g. meet my son, José Nguyen). Dunno how the poll question was phrased, but that might have a bit to do with the results.

My question is 'Why?'

I was just talking about this to a friend of mine at work who is British /English and very proudly so, because she just got back from visiting her friend in Aiken, South Carolina for two weeks a week ago.

She told me she was a little hesitant to go as she realized her friend is, in fact, racist - but she likes her in a lot of other ways.
And she said that this friend owns a horse farm in South Carolina that is surrounded by cotton fields and Liz, (my friend) hesitated to bring the subject of slavery up, but in fact, her friend did.
She said, 'Do you know that cotton is very prickly - and so the slaves who had to pick it day in and day out must have cut their hands to ribbons, and can you even imagine that?...' but in the next breath stated that she did not agree with interracial marriage.

I asked Liz what reason her friend had given, that when obviously she could feel empathy for people of color, she could she not view them as equals. She said she asked her friend the same thing, but her friend simply stated, 'It's in my blood.'

Liz wanted to forgive this as a residual effect of conditioning, but I explained to her that this did not have to necessarily be the case and that I believed it was more a personality choice as my two parents were raised in what I would consider to be racist families in the segregated south, yet neither one of them grew up to be racist and in fact, welcomed and embraced a black son-in -law and two interracial grandchildren.

So, still - I would love to know what reason these 46% of Mississipians give as feeling interracial marriage should be 'illegal', and why the other 14% who are not sure are not sure.

I think the conversation might get a little heated tonight when I go to see 'The Help' with four white English women because I have a feeling that at least one of them who expresses certain anti-American tendencies will say that all white Americans are in fact racist and like the racist southerners in this film. I however know that this is not the case.
I'll let you know how the conversation goes.

Really? "Why are you a bigot?" is not a question I think naturally occurs to me to ask someone (or "why not interracial marriage?"). I guess I don't really think enough cognition is going on in a racist's head that would cause me to expect any kind of sensible answer.

I picked cotton, many years ago. My hands were barely nicked.

I've never picked cotton, so I don't know for sure that it's prickly or hurts your hands, that's just what my friend told me.

Snood - I would be interested as to why someone would find it preferable for interracial marriage to be illegal. I'd like to hear the reasoning. I would be curious and interested to hear their opinions.
I don't think all racists lack intelligence. That's not a conclusion I've ever come to, no matter how stupid I might think some of their ideas about race and people are.

There was a song in the early '60s that included the line "When those cotton bolls get rotten, you can pick very much cotton". I asked an Army buddy about that, because he was from Alabama. Come to find out that rotten cotton bolls were much easier to pick than frest bolls - no mention of prickly and I didn't know to ask. Anyhow, rotten cotton bolls leave the cotton dirty and with a lower value, but one hand could really pick very much more cotton.

Ive done lots of work in the Gold Fields of S Carolina and have walked several dozen cotton fields at picking time. They let the plants dry pretty much and they are very stiff and prickly when dry. They use harvesters with ing=board gins now so pickin cotton by hand is just for small garden plots where people do it for crafts.

They grow a type of short staple cotton in SE PA and in Delmarva. Its mostly for Halloween decorations and craft doll making. The cotton plant, when trimmed, can be made to look like a woman with a babushka.

Racims is rampant in the south. I know it is in Louisiana and the further south you go the worse it gets. Why? I haven't been able to figure that out yet.

Okay, I'll grant that not all racists are unintelligent.

Maybe its just because I know there IS NO reasonable answer to the question "Why would you want interracial marriage to be illegal?" that I wouldn't bother asking.

Use your imagination. What kinds of intelligent answers do you think you might get?

My mother, who had much more experience, told me the same thing.
Regular picking, the plant could scratch or tear the flesh, but, you learn to avoid that.

I've known a number of people who, as adolescents, made some spending money by picking cotton. They all said it is hard, painful, gruelling work but none of them specifically complained of prickliness or hurt hands.