I'm just going to leave this here:
https://threader.app/thread/1194941064693657602
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A BLACK BILLIONAIRE'S RUSE
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Caution ahead. Proceed at your own peril. Receipts needed. Can someone please provide me with the tangible evidence of black media mogul Byron Allen's undying and unwavering commitment to black Americans before now?
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/comcast-s-supreme-court-battle-byron-allen-may-make-racial-ncna1080956 …
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I need you to get this. Courts will only rule on the issues put before them. Thurgood Marshall & his gang of civil rights titans spent decades plotting legal strategy & were very careful of what cases they put before the United States Supreme Court.
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They understood the consequence of bad precedent. They also fully understood the consequences of a court striking down good law & upholding bad law. It should also be noted that what Marshall & Co. were fighting for is much different from what Allen has his eyes set.
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As a civil rights attorney and member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar, I am very sensitive to bad precedent. We were one justice's death away from Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the doctrine of "Separate but Equal" being upheld in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
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Had Chief Justice Fred Vinson not suffered a heart attack in 1953 on the eve of Brown v. Board and had Earl Warren not been elevated in his stead, you don't get the unanimous 9-0 outcome in Brown v. Board and segregation would still be the law of the land today.
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I mention this brief history to explain how Supreme Court composition affects the outcome of cases. This is a majority conservative court that has demonstrated a hostility towards civil rights & issues involving race. Mr. Allen has given them a stab at a signature law.
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Given the conservative leaning of this court, if a Las Vegas casino window was taking bets on the outcome of this case, what side would you bet on winning? Unfortunately, in this hypothetical, what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas, but has ramifications nationwide
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I need to reiterate, Courts will only decide on issues put before them & Mr. Allen has put the first post-Civil War federal law defining citizenship & guaranteeing civil rights squarely in the crosshairs of a conservative Supreme Court. We are not to take this lightly.
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Mr. Allen is framing the narrative that Comcast is attempting to destroy the Civil Rights Act of 1866. However, Comcast, like any defendant in any case would do, is simply responding to the arguments Mr. Allen put in his original lawsuit.
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Suing someone and then complaining about how they defend themselves is a dangerous ruse, especially when you are resting your case on a signature piece of legislation that protects so many black Americans.
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Byron Allen is playing a dangerous game of chicken, a game that he can walk away from unscathed, but a game most black Americans cannot. It is not Comcast, but Mr. Allen who has put the Civil Rights Act of 1866 at risk.
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Let's dig deeper. Mr. Allen has draped his capitalistic crusade in the traditional verbiage of civil rights and an unwavering concern for black Americans, but his past business dealings with the ultraconservative Sinclair network is quite unsettling.
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There are some in our community that argue that Mr. Allen could be a wolf in sheep's clothing, a mole in blackface. I'm not sure, but their concerns are not to be ignored. Be leery of anyone who tells you to just shut up, get in line, and follow us. Question everything.
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Nevertheless, herein lies the problem with casting your buckets in oligarch ponds. You never know where their financial interests lie. People of Mr. Allen's ilk did not get to where they are by fighting for everyday people.
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They are capitalists with capitalistic ambitions and every move they make is to be viewed with suspicion. Otherwise, you run the risk of reducing an entire movement for black Americans to the capitalistic ambitions of a black billionaire.
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Mr. Allen would not be the first wealthy black celebrity to fleece black Americans for support. O.J. Simpson is a cautionary lesson of black Americans galvanizing support for a person who had not demonstrated any fidelity to black Americans prior to a court appearance
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I will not wast space here, but there are stark similarities between the backgrounds of Mr. Allen and Mr. Simpson sans the murder charge. Do not take this statement as a personal shot. This statement is about the thorough vetting of all people who seek our support.
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Mr. Allen must not be given plausible deniability on his whether he has demonstrated historically a fidelity to black Americans. If so, we run the risk of presuming that Mr. Allen is working for all black Americans when he is actually working for himself.
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If the latter is true, then Mr. Allen is doing to poor black people what President Trump is doing to poor white people: manipulating the emotion of the less fortunate to support their more nefarious capitalistic exploits. This is a hard charge, but not one to be ignored
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These are the questions that must be posed. Again, I caution you to be leery of those who chastise you for merely posing such questions. These are tough times and black Americans can ill afford any wrong turns. Follow no one blindly.
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As the article above points out, if the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is overturned, it will "make it very hard for even ordinary people to have a full court hearing on race discrimination" and "ordinary people who have been maltreated could well pay the price."
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Bryon Allen is not "ordinary people," but we are. Indirectly, Mr. Allen is telling us that his capitalistic ambitions are worth our civil rights. If the Civil Rights Act of 1866 falls, it will be us left to pick up the pieces while Mr. Allen flies home in a private jet.
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