Dan Akroyd's turn as Mississippi lawman no cause for "alarm" in state where little has changed below the surface

It seems that former Saturday Night Live alum Dan Akroyd has decided to “expand” his horizons, joining celebrities like Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Lou Ferrigno and Shaquille O’Neal who have decided that law enforcement is their true calling, at least on a part time basis. Akroyd was sworn in as a deputy in the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department; he studied criminal justice in college, and this was deemed sufficient qualification for the duties of “organizing programs and fundraisers.” 

Of course, one would be naturally suspicious, given that Akroyd decided on a post in Mississippi where nothing seems to have really charged since the state became notorious for the murders of civil rights activists in the 1960s. In 2011, a group of white Mississippi teens from mostly white Rankin County decided one night that they should “fuck with some niggers” and drove 16 miles to a predominantly black section of Jackson. The first black individual they encountered was an auto worker named James Craig Anderson, who they spotted in a motel parking lot. 

The teens took turns beating Anderson, shouting “white power.” After most of the group left in an SUV, another stayed behind with two female friends, who apparently didn’t have any issue with what happened next: Blonde, blue-eyed Deryl Dedmon  proceeded to run over a staggering Anderson at high speed with his pick-up truck. Anderson died of his injuries later that night. Dedmon later boasted to friends how he “ran over a nigger.” Unfortunately for Dedmon and his friends, the whole incident was caught on the motel’s surveillance cameras. I watched this video, and it is stomach-turning. Dedmon later pleaded guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty, and is serving consecutive life terms. Interestingly, this case didn’t excite a fraction of the interest the Zimmerman case did. 

But things have changed, really, say the state’s apologists. They will tell you that there are more blacks in public office in the state per capita than any other. That is true, and should be since the state has the highest percentage of blacks in the country; unfortunately that doesn’t translate into office-holding on the statewide or federal level. In fact, no other state in the Union has a greater correlation between race and political ideology. A Gallup poll earlier this month revealed that Mississippi has the highest percentage of self-identified conservatives, 50.5 percent; 58 percent of the population is white. 

The few white Mississippians who run for office as Democrats seem to be quite conscious of racial politics in the state. In fact, they think nothing of stabbing in the back the black constituencies who voted for them.  In 2012, seven newly-elected white Mississippi officeholders who ran as Democrats switched parties within six months. State Democratic leader Rickey Cole said that "While we strongly believe that any person should join and support the political party that best represents their interests, we find it troubling that less than six months into a new four-year term, officials who posed as Democrats last November have now decided to become Republicans, but intend to remain in the office to which they were elected as Democrats."

In fact, since Barack Obama was first elected president, at least 50 elected white Democrats in Mississippi have switched parties. One should never underestimate the role race plays in Mississippi politics. In 1948, a shocking 87 percent of the state’s presidential vote went to Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, who ran strictly on his opposition to Harry Truman’s anti-discrimination policies (nearly 99 percent of Thurmond’s votes came from former Confederate states, winning five for 39 electoral votes despite having only 2.4 percent of the national vote). The state has also not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982. Statewide, five of the last six governor’s races were won by the Republican candidate; the current governor, Phil Bryant, is so reactionary (particularly in his support of voter suppression measures) that he makes George Wallace seem like a raving liberal.

The state's anti-government attitude--at least among whites--is somewhat flawed in its conception, considering the fact that it is more dependent that most in federal assistance; 44 percent of its black population and 16 percent of its white population live below the poverty line, according to a Kaiser Foundation report last October. No less disturbing is the fact that according to the 2010 census, the median and per capita income of blacks is barely half that of whites in the state, with Latinos doing barely better.  

I’ll cut Akroyd some slack, however. He is not a hypocrite like Greta Van Susteren, who also made news when she “exploded” at a Fox News colleague for calling Texas Democratic governor wannabe Wendy Davis “Abortion Barbie.” Van Susteren has also scolded us that her version of racism isn’t “real” racism, but she isn’t fooling anyone except other racists and feminists. Hinds County happens to have a population that is 69 percent black, and obviously Akroyd isn’t there to start a race war. Reportedly he is in the county filming a biopic of R&B legend James Brown, and for some reason decided he wants to help improve relations between law enforcement and the community. It is just too bad that his motivations won’t rub-off on those who need it the most.