OPINION: Representation must follow development in West Jackson

By Selika Sweet, M.D., FAAFP

JA Guest Writer

At Kroger the other day, I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged woman buying party supplies.

“A party?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I work for the Legislature, and I’m putting on a dinner.”

“Well, you ought to have it on the hill I have,” I told her. “426 West Pascagoula Street.”

She paused.

“That’s over there under the bridge, right?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t go under that bridge. No way,” she said. “Call me if you have another location and we can talk.”

And just like that, the conversation ended.

On another occasion, when I asked a state senator about supporting the venue I am going to build, he said, “They’re shooting people over there.”

That statement stayed with me, not because it was entirely false, but because of what it revealed.

West Jackson does have serious crimes. Residents know that better than anyone. Gun violence, instability, and years of disinvestment have taken a toll. To deny that would be dishonest.

But the deeper question is this: when does crime become a reason to abandon a community, and when does that same community suddenly become valuable again once money is involved?

West Jackson is not an empty space on a map. It is a historic Black community built and sustained by generations of families, churches, schools, and institutions. Jackson State University remains one of the city’s great anchors. The people, the history, and the value of this community have been here all along.

Recently, a neighbor on Pascagoula Street called me and said, “There are white people everywhere, walking around and taking pictures all over your hill.”

So, I went to see for myself.

The young workers were part of a survey team, photographing and documenting land for a proposed trail connection. They were polite, professional, and clearly doing their job. I had no issue with that. What struck me was something else: on a job that appeared to require limited specialized skill, I did not see young Black workers from the surrounding community.

That matters.

West Jackson is too often discussed only through the language of fear. People talk about crime. They talk about danger. They talk about where they will not go, what they will not support, and who they will not engage. Yet when land becomes useful for development, recreation, and tourism, the same community suddenly becomes visible.

Visible for mapping.

Visible for planning.

Visible for profit.

But it is still too often invisible when it is time to hire.

That is the contradiction.

Yes, West Jackson has real crime problems. But crime is not the whole story, and it should never become a convenient excuse to write off the people who live there. In fact, one reason crime persists in communities like West Jackson is that too many systems have long withheld the very things that help stabilize neighborhoods: jobs, investment, ownership, and meaningful inclusion.

I thought about a young Black man I know, a returning citizen who is doing what society says he is supposed to do. He is strong, capable, trying to support his child and build a better future. I made a call on his behalf to help him get a surveying job in the area. There was no real interest.

That is the part we need to name plainly.

Everybody says they want safer neighborhoods. Everybody says they want less crime. But too many people are unwilling to invest in the people most affected by it. They will study the land before they hire the residents. They will fund plans before they fund participation. They will imagine new possibilities for a place while ignoring human potential already standing there.

Perception changes when money shows up.

Places once dismissed as dangerous suddenly become promising. Neighborhoods once avoided suddenly become assets. Streets once ignored suddenly become corridors. Yet the people who stayed, who endured disinvestment, and who kept community alive are too often treated as an afterthought.

That is not revitalization. That is extraction.

Atlanta confronted a version of this issue decades ago. Mayor Maynard Jackson made clear that if major business was going to be done in Atlanta, Black people had to be included in the economic opportunity, not as symbols, not as decoration, but as contractors, decision-makers, and participants in the future being built.

Jackson should learn from that example.

If public and private investment is coming into West Jackson, then the people of West Jackson should not be expected to stand by and simply watch it happen. They should be part of it.

As workers.

As contractors.

As planners.

As decision-makers.

This is not about pretending crime does not exist. It does. And the residents of West Jackson deserve real public safety, serious policy attention, and sustained investment. But they also deserve not to be reduced to crime.

A community should not be considered good enough for investment but somehow not good enough for inclusion.

Because here is the truth:

You cannot fear a place on Monday and profit from it on Friday.

You cannot avoid a community until there is money to be made and then act as though you discovered it.

And you should not walk our streets, document our land, and overlook our people.

Opportunity should not just pass through West Jackson.

It should belong to West Jackson.