Down to the Wire - Worried about Memphis

Whistle_Pig
Mon, 18 May 2009 06:51:49 +0000

I’d say the perception is perhaps more negative than the reality, especially in the Rhodes community, which is quite enlightened relative to the community in which it’s located. Memphis, perhaps more so than many metro areas, includes an enormous portion of poor, under-educated people, including blacks who’ve been there for generations and transplanted rural whites who wrongly see Memphis as their economic, world-of-work savior, all of whom may have threatening misconceptions about anyones different from themselves …and especially those who “look” different. Memphis is a literal and figurative distance from Nashville or Atlanta or Charlotte or even St. Louis, behind on the “sophistication” curve, I’d say. And remember, it’s only a mile from both/and Mississippi, Arkansas, neither of which is as deep and dark as many ignorant yanks might perceive, and both of which have merited remnants of that ill-informed vision. It’s a fascinating, colorful culture once you get beyond the gates of the Rhodes oasis. Still, it will have the unfortunate, eternal, inescapable hangover of being the place MLK was murdered.