The governor of Mississippi transferred millions if dollars from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to the University of Southern Mississippi for the purpose of funding a volleyball stadium. The funds were moved at the behest of former football star Brett Favre, whose daughter plays volleyball at that college. This is all that happened. There is no need to embellish or accentuate the outrage.

But, a deeper meaning exists beneath the tawdry surface of Mississippi’s scandal. For centuries, Mississippians and other Southerners have demanded leeway to run their states without interference from “Yankees” and federal bureaucrats. In this rather farcical outrage, we see why the Deep South and similar red states are unfit to manage public policy as it pertains to the disadvantaged, the poor, and the weak. In other words, those whose cause defines the purpose of a modern, civilized government.

Mississippi’s record on race and poverty is abysmal. The Magnolia State was the first former Confederate province to enact a Black Code, essentially reinstating slavery in an even more direct and viciously racist manner than the Southern states that followed its lead. The state later enacted the country’s first Literacy Test for voting and the first sales tax in the South, hurting the impoverished. And of course now they have successfully spearheaded the end of abortion rights throughout red America.

I do not, however, want to portray Mississippi as the singular malefactor in the states-rights tragedy. Other states, including North Carolina, have maximized their ability to oppress poor people when the national government averted its eyes from conservative deprivation. Throughout our history, right-wing states have used federalism to impose regressive policy on the weakest people who should be, but are not, included in the commonwealth.

And what else would they do? The ugly truth is that bigotry resonates powerfully in large parts of America. In a democracy where public preferences roughly translate into elected officials’ policy choice, bigoted votes will create bigoted governments. We needed a vigilant federal government when Mississippi and the rest of the South tried to reinstate a slavery-like system in the 1860s. Sadly, so little has changed that the federal government must come to the aid of poor Southerners yet again.