Mississippi Is All About the Masala?

Hi Meltingpot Readers,

I'm back from Virginia, exhausted but content. The VA Festival of the Book was a phenomenal success. I never made it to Jefferson's Monticello, but I made some great new author friends and garnered an invitation to return to Charlottesville. Yea!

I don't have a lot of time to post today, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw this article in the New York Times about the growing trend of mixed-race families in the state of Mississippi.

Here are some interesting facts from the story:

" In the first comprehensive accounting of multiracial Americans since statistics were first collected about them in 2000, reporting from the 2010 census, made public in recent days, shows that the nation’s mixed-race population is growing far more quickly than many demographers had estimated, particularly in the South and parts of the Midwest. That conclusion is based on the bureau’s analysis of 42 states; the data from the remaining eight states will be released this week.

In North Carolina, the mixed-race population doubled. In Georgia, it expanded by more than 80 percent, and by nearly as much in Kentucky and Tennessee. In Indiana, Iowa and South Dakota, the multiracial population increased by about 70 percent. ...

Mississippi led the nation in the growth of mixed marriages for most of the last decade, according to Mr. Frey’s analysis of the American Community Survey. Still, multiracial people are a tiny percentage of the state’s population: 34,000, about 1.1 percent. And many here complain of enduring racial inequities."

Please read the story in its entirety and tell me what you think. (I sound like a professor handing out assignments, don't I?) And by the way, who didn't love the movie Mississippi Masala? If you never saw it, get thee to a video store right now.


Peace!