Tennessee Republicans Practice Confederate Values: UPDATED

 

It's one thing for MS Gov. Tate Reeves to declare April Confederate Heritage Month, but it's a whole other thing for the majority Republican State House in Tennessee to expel two young Black lawmakers for, get this, siding with their constituents on a matter of vital local importance, namely, gun control in the wake of another national tragedy, gun violence at one of our schools. 

Whew--see, that's actually showing some Confederate values, right there.

The legislators who were expelled exercised their freedom of speech, and represented the people who brought them to office. Whether you agree with them or not, it's hard to say that what they had done was on the same plane as what some previous office-holders were distinctly not expelled for, such as pedophilia and corruption. A White legislator, Rep. Gloria Johnson, who had stood with them, was not expelled, and gave a transparent answer as to why: it's skin color. 

Above, I selected a picture of Rep. Justin Jones being arrested protesting the bust of KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest being on display in the State House. It looks to me like there are people who can not distinguish the difference between causing good and bad trouble on the moral plane, but this young man gets it. 

A lot of young people get it, which is probably why states like Florida don't want "getting it" being taught in the schools and deride "wokeness" and CRT. I think the Tennessee GOP's actions here were execrable, and they will be hearing from the vox populi on this next election time. 

UPDATE: The GOP-led leg promises to be economic terrorists if their bête noire is reinstated, which seems very fascist indeed.  Among other, obviously derogatory descriptors. Also, too, our VP Kamala Harris came in support of these Democratic heroes. 

VP @kamalaharris at Fisk University with the #TennesseeThree: “If the @studentsdemand, if the @momsdemand, if the people’s demand is not being heard by those who should listen and care … if I feel like I’m so right … shouldn’t I have the courage to debate it? Make your case!” pic.twitter.com/C0EefX5sis

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) April 7, 2023

The TN GOP cut the microphones which brought out the megaphones and that is why the debate turned into what it did. They silenced the debate because why? All in the pocket of NRA? Or all too caught up in the belief that our guns are for the time of when "we" secede or divorce from the US Government? No. We are in service to one another in this one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, or we are not a society. This isn't a war. This is a community where some members forgot how to speak because they were used to being understood. But their constituents are who they need to understand. And many of them don't want their babies slaughtered in their schools. They don't want inner city warfare, they don't want rural domestic bullshit, they are tired of guns and the culture that uses them not like a sensible tool but like a social backscratcher. A way to do away with irritants. The kinds that have faces.

You hear our Vice-President. If the GOP are so right--can't they debate instead of eliminate? 

UPDATE: This Politico article discusses "decorum" in the TN statehouse, and WOW:

The undercurrent of race is present in many of the Capitol’s controversies.

“Black people are idiots,” Cade Cothren, the chief of staff to former House Speaker Glen Casada, once wrote in a text message during a conversation about Common Core curriculum. It was one of several uncovered prior to his resignation in 2019. Both Casada and Cothren are now awaiting federal trial in a case involving alleged bribery and kickbacks at the legislature. Cothren has since apologized for the racist comment, and more recently has even condemned the legislature’s decision to expel the Black Democratic legislators.

A former GOP legislative staffer told me that in 2020, a member of House Republican leadership in a text message referred to Jones, then an activist, and another Black lawmaker as “baboons.” Former GOP Rep. Brandon Ogles, then vice-chair of the Republican caucus, at the time also recorded the staffer discussing the text. He shared a copy of the recording with POLITICO. The member of leadership in question denies sending the text. The comments were allegedly made while Jones was taking part in protests following George Floyd’s murder by police.

Deplorable.

UPDATE: It took six days, but both of the expelled representatives are back and I think they have more strength behind them than before. I'm not sure what spiteful result the Republicans who ousted them wanted, but this...wasn't it.  And them expending the time to oust them...also wasn't it.