Outside looking in - Former resident- there for 3
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6/20/2006
Jackson is still very segregated. Locals can't seem to realize that. Blacks rarely hang out with whites and vice versa. The public school system is horrible (I went to the "best one" the city had to offer) and segregated as well. The textbooks were outdated, gang fights a lot, teachers passing out drunk at their desks (several, not one). I even graduated a year early to go ahead and go to college because I felt I was wasting my time. Even our real estate agent told us upon moving to the city that I should go to a private school, because that is where the whites go. I soon learned that that is how they keep African Americans out of the private schools was by extortionate tuitions. A lot of people simply can't afford them, but there is hardly any white kids in public schools. From my private school experience there (two years), the education was good. But nothing compared to regular public schools in the midwest and mid Atlantic. The outer suburb schools are better but very white and inner city Jackson was very black. The town is seperated into where the "whites live" and where the "blacks live". Rare occasion is it to see both colors in the same place. If you are white, you get to know the other whites pretty fast because Jackson is predominantly black. The community leaders are corrupt and caught all the time doing something illegal. Crime is completely out of control. I have lived in Chicago, DC and Miami. I have never once have been robbed till I moved to Jackson (3x).
I noticed why a lot of natives like it there: They have never lived anywhere else to compare it to and don't know that it is weird to see this community separation, poverty, etc... I am from the midwest, east coast and Florida and I am a causacian. However, some of my family members from South America refused to some back after some negative incidents that have happened. Most everyone I associated with in school there has left the state.
Sorry to be so negative, but it really is not that great.
Some positive things. Lemuria is a great bookstore and Keifers is a decent Greek restaurant. Reservoir is nice. Good good, people are friendly. Awesome fishing.
jamesd | Parker, CO