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" There has been a growing premium in the labor market for educated workers, but Mississippi and other southern states have underinvested in education and other forms of human capital, particularly for blacks but also for whites. The South’s strategy was to cut taxes, on the theory that low taxes would attract businesses and boost the economic growth rate, but this was not terribly effective in the age of the knowledge economy. High-paying, high-technology employers want low tax rates, of course, but above all they require a pool of educated workers, so they often end up investing in high-tax, high-education states like California, Massachusetts and New York. This is amplified when right-wing politicians in the South defend Confederate statues or demonize gays or transgender people, and the result is further economic backwardness and frustration. And the cycle repeats. "
― Nicholas D. Kristof , Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope
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" If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,’ then the girl’s father and mother . . . shall display the cloth [that the couple slept on] before the elders of the town . . . If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. – DEUTERONOMY 22:13 – 21 "
― Nicholas D. Kristof , Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide