Category: Racism

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Senate Confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson as Supreme Court Justice

April 7, 2022

Earlier today the U.S. Senate voted 53-47 to confirm Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson as the 116th Supreme Court Justice. Judge Jackson’s confirmation makes history in that she will be the first Black woman elevated to the nation’s highest court.

Judge Jackson will take her seat on the high court after Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer.

All 50 senators who caucus with Democrats voted to confirm Judge Jackson, along with three Republicans: Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

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They’re Coming For Your Books

Based on a report issued today by the American Library Association (ALA), there were over 700 challenges made in 2021 against books currently on the shelves in libraries, resulting in nearly 1,600 individual book challenges or removals, the organization said in a press release published on Monday. Efforts to ban books were primarily directed toward books and materials written by or depict the lives of Black or LGBTQ individuals.

ALA President Patricia Wong said in a statement that parents should involve themselves in what books their children decide or want to read — but restricting other parents’ rights to do the same can harm children.

“Libraries remain ready to do what we always have: make knowledge and ideas available so people are free to choose what to read,” Wong added.

The vast majority of Americans oppose book bans. The ALA conducted a poll, published last month, demonstrating that 71 percent of U.S. voters opposed efforts to remove books from schools, libraries or universities. This includes 70 percent of Republican respondents, who agreed that book bans are harmful, the poll found.

In spite of that, however, there has been a large and vocal push by conservative groups and parents, promoted by Republican lawmakers, to restrict access to books they deem objectionable. The push to politicize Black and LGBTQ people’s existence is evidence of growing fascism on the right.

You can read the entire article by Chris Walker at Truthout.org.

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Judge Says Florida Legislature Racist

Chief United States District Judge, Mark E. Walker, quotes liberally from the speeches and writings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in his ruling declaring Florida’s new voting law unconstitutional:

“On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In its most memorable passage, he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Many know and celebrate Dr. King’s speech — or at least its second half, given extemporaneously after Mahalia Jackson called on Dr. King to tell the crowd about his dream. But most do not know that, only three years later, Dr. King told NBC News “that dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare.” As he explained, Dr. King had “come to see that we have many more difficulties ahead and some of the old optimism was a little superficial and now it must be tempered with a solid realism. And I think the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go…”

Likewise, while this Court lauds the idealism of Dr. King’s dream in 1963, this Court is not so naive to believe that the Florida Legislature would not pass an intentionally discriminatory law in 2021. We do not live in a colorblind society — not that this was ever Dr. King’s point.

The evidence bears that out. In Florida, White Floridians outpace Black Floridians in almost every socioeconomic metric. In Florida, since the end of the Civil War, politicians have attacked the political rights of Black citizens. [emphasis mine] In Florida, though we have come far, “the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go.” For the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents. They have done so not as, in the words of Dr. King, “vicious racists, with [the] governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,” but as part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters. That, the law does not permit.”

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED:

  1. This Court declares that § 101.69(2), Florida Statutes (2021), as amended by SB 90, is unconstitutional.
  2. This Court declares that § 97.0575(3)(a), Florida Statutes (2021), as amended by SB 90, is unconstitutional.
  3. This Court declares that the prohibitions against “engaging in any activity with the intent to influence or effect of influencing a voter” under § 102.031(4)(a)-(b), Florida Statutes (2021), as amended by SB 90, is unconstitutional.
  4. In Case No. 4:21cv187, Plaintiffs are entitled to no relief under the Americans with Disabilities Act on Count III of their amended complaint, ECF No. 45.

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Trucker Convoy of Hate

The group of allegedly unaffiliated truck drivers who recently converged on the Washington, D.C. beltway, via Hagerstown, Maryland, claims to be protesting vaccine mandates (efforts to keep people healthy and safe), but at closer look, it seems their motivation have less to do with their stated passion of-the-day, and instead just more of the same grievances poorly-educated whites have had for centuries. It’s not they’ve tried to hide it. Or, if they have, they’ve door a very poor job of it.

For example, take a speaker at their gathering place at the Hagerstown Speedway.

On Friday morning, a man onstage at the rally site launched into a verbal attack against Black Lives Matter Plaza, urging the crowd to go into D.C and vandalize it. “Everybody needs to go to D.C. now,” the man, who did not identify himself, said Friday.

“Black Lives Matter Street, we’re gonna take it back. All that paint’s coming off that street. Before I get put in my grave, it’s going to get tar and feathers, and then we’re going to tar and feather all our delegates,” the man said. That afternoon, members of the convoy drove their bobtail trucks through Black Lives Matter Plaza.

So, don’t be mislead. This isn’t about vaccine mandates, which are expiring as these idiots drive their fuel-guzzling trucks in a circle around metropolitan Washington, D.C.. This is more to do with a problem that Americans have dealt with before this country was founded. They prove it every day.

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Voter Suppression in the United States

VOTER SUPPRESSION IS AN UNFORTUNATE BUT CONSISTENT FEATURE OF THE U.S. POLITICAL SYSTEM. LIMITATIONS ON THE RIGHT TO VOTE WERE CODIFIED IN THE JUNE 2013 CASE OF SHELBY COUNTY V. HOLDER, IN WHICH THE U.S. SUPREME COURT GUTTED THE 1965 VOTING RIGHTS ACT. THIS DECISION NO LONGER REQUIRED STATES AND LOCALITIES WITH A HISTORY OF SUPPRESSING VOTING RIGHTS TO SUBMIT CHANGES IN THEIR ELECTION LAWS TO THE U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FOR REVIEW. SINCE THIS RULING, 25 STATES CREATED NEW OBSTACLES TO VOTE.

National Low Income Housing Coalition

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Mark Twain’s Version of Andrew Johnson’s Last Speech as President

And when my term began to draw to a close, & I saw that but little time remained wherein to defeat justice, to further exasperate the people, & to complete my unique & unprecedented record, I fell to & gathered up the odds & ends, & made it perfect — swept it clean; for I pardoned Jeff Davis; I pardoned every creature that had ever lifted his hand against the hated flag of the Union I have swept the floors clean; my work is done.

The Impeachers, by Brenda Wineapple

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Andrew Johnson Argues Against Reconstruction Laws Passed by Congress in A December 3, 1867 Message (continued)

Johnson

It is manifestly and avowedly the object of these laws to confer upon Negroes the privilege of voting and to disfranchise such a number of white citizens as will give the former a clear majority at all elections in the Southern States. This, to the minds of some persons, is so important that a violation of the Constitution is justified as a means of bringing it about. The morality is always false which excuses a wrong because it proposes to accomplish a desirable end. We are not permitted to do evil that good may come. But in this case the end itself is evil, as well as the means. The subjugation of the States to Negro domination would be worse than the military despotism under which they are now suffering. It was believed beforehand that the people would endure any amount of military oppression for any length of time rather than degrade themselves by subjection to the Negro race. Therefore they have been left without a choice. Negro suffrage was established by act of Congress, and the military officers were commanded to superintend the process of clothing the Negro race with the political privileges torn from white men.

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Racists in the White House: Andrew Johnson’s December 3, 1867 Message to Congress

The blacks in the South are entitled to be well and humanely governed, and to have the protection of just laws for all their rights of person and property. If it were practicable at this time to give them a Government exclusively their own, under which they might manage their own affairs in their own way, it would become a grave question whether we ought to do so, or whether common humanity would not require us to save them from themselves. But under the circumstances this is only a speculative point. It is not proposed merely that they shall govern themselves, but that they shall rule the white race, make and administer State laws, elect Presidents and members of Congress, and shape to a greater or less extent the future destiny of the whole country. Would such a trust and power be safe in such hands?

I’m currently reading and enjoying “The Impeachers”, a brilliant and well-researched volume by Brenda Wineapple. The similarities between Johnson’s impeachment and the current calls for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump are eerily similar. After reading Wineapple’s book, I might hesitate the next time I think Trump is the worst president in the history of the United States.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share some of the other outrageous and misguided sections of Johnson’s diatribe.