Official Protest Thread...

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
From Sept 2020



It is sometimes said that when someone resorts to making comparisons to Adolf Hitler during a debate they have lost. Comparing mandatory pandemic lockdowns or the near-forced labour of “essential workers” and educators to Nazi policy may indeed, at times, be overly-dramatic.

But when what is being criticised is the instinct to shout “Sieg Heil”, campaign slogans bearing the name of American Nazi sympathiser organisations, plans to stop a “demographic bomb” and prevent the breaking down of “the white, male power structure”, when the society criticised is one in which white supremacists kill protesters protesting against the state killings of an ethnic minority, when a senior adviser to the president promoted materials on the theme of white genocide and the top writer for the most popular news programme in the country wrote posts about intellectual deficiencies in Asian and Black people, the comparison is not always out of place.

There have been several nights of broken glass in the history of the American colony. Several dark-skinned Anne Franks hiding in the exposed roots of trees covered in spruce pine and red onion to throw off the tracking dogs. Holocausts, pogroms are a dime a dozen, extermination attempts, mass internment, cattle cars, but its primary targets were Black and Indigenous – populations whose lives and deaths are still considered to be of little consequence.

As a result, the society built upon a gulag continues to be called a great experiment in democracy. Atrocities committed against non-white people are trivialised and reduced to “the imperfections” of an “imperfect nation”. The tonnage of blood and flesh peeled from whipping posts, Black town burnings, and “Indian Wars” are but flecks of dust floating against a harmonious, pioneering white settlement destined to civilise the world.
More a Merkers Mine than a state, the slave colony where Black life was waterboarded between the threshing wheel of slave production and the thin air of “race riots” is, even in 2020, seen by many as the birthplace of modern liberty. This is because embedded in both the colony’s structure – and in the minds of its admirers – is the fact that Black people do not count. If Black lives mattered, the lights shining from the shining city on the hill would be known to be concentration camp searchlights. If Black lives mattered, globally, America would be a pariah state.

Leftists will watch racists genuflect before a president who hugs the flag. They will watch protesters taken away in unmarked vans for protesting the arbitrary state murder of Black people and cry: “fascism!”

But there is a particular form of fascism to which the American state conforms. A fascism that is organised around the logic of white nationalism, the destruction, exploitation and expelling of ethnic minorities, and white political supremacy. The charge of fascism conveniently leaves out or makes subordinate the race hatred that fuels, enables and is the primary reason for the support of this burgeoning authoritarianism.

A leftist that comes away from reading the history of Nazi Germany denouncing, first, the Third Reich’s subversion of political norms, should be suspected of anti-Semitism. A leftist who warns of the rise of fascism as evidenced by the destruction of mail-sorting machines and the appearance of unmarked vehicles at protests in a country that has prison farms, is one for whom Black life has not counted.

As many have laboured to remind this society, Hitler’s genocidal project was inspired by (if not a tribute to) the American colony. Contrary to the racist claim that racism is un-American, it is more accurate to say that the Third Reich was a type of Americanism.

European innovation and efficiency were added to the blood quantum laws, Black codes, eugenics, forced relocation, work camps, and killing fields of rugged America. Slave ships to cattle cars, Tuskegee experiments to Josef Mengele, the Nazi project was less an otherworldly “radical evil” that came out of nowhere than it was a facsimile of the white supremacist order of the colonies.

It remains an entirely strange thing to shoot into a crowd of protesters protesting against police anti-Blackness and killings. Stranger still, is to wish Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who killed two people and injured one, to be president. And for the leader of the country to come to his defence.
It does, however, follow exactly the logic of Nazism. Whereas firing automatic weapons into a crowd and killing scores in Paris is seen as evidence of the collapse of Europe under “Islamofascistic” terror – often by the very same conservatives and religious groups who now come to the aid of Rittenhouse – the killing of the people protesting against the centuries-long tradition of white right to the pleasurable destruction of dark-skinned people is to be excused.

In America, white supremacists are handled as if the Shoah never happened. As if a civil war was not fought to maintain their power to destroy the flesh and aspirations of dark-skinned bodies at will, and keep them in perpetual sexual and physical torture.

Even now the president and conservatives sacralise the battle flag of that effort and decry the felling of monuments to its child abusers. In America, white supremacists are given water bottles and all but deputised to put down a Black uprising against pleasure-killing. Like all white supremacist colonies, in America, the white settler is expected to be the colony’s auxiliary force. In the colony, the Allgemeine SS is always already assembled.
White supremacists are treated as if modernity is not a holocaust they got away with. As if they do not speak of and attempt to launch and carry out race wars to this day, to infiltrate security forces they deem not sufficiently white supremacist and to perpetrate mass killings. Devotees of a death-cult to pink pigmentation, responsible for murders from Goa to Gambia, are given more benefit of the doubt than a Black boy in a convenience store.

Republicans invited white people brandishing weapons at protesters to speak at their national convention. Days later, a white person killed protesters with an automatic weapon. This has not led to contrition. On the contrary, the killer is being praised and defended by police and politicians and funds are being raised for his legal defence. The killing of protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is being given tacit approval. This is not without precedent. For instance, the pogrom on German Jews of November 9-10, 1938, was not pushed back against by Nazi leaders. Presumably, white liberals were imploring the Fuhrer to turn around and heal the country then as well.

If the boy who killed the protestors in Kenosha erred, it was that he was too eager. A bit more patience and the aspiring officer would have the murder laundered as police error. Now conservatives must assemble a patchwork of defences. They say he travelled to defend property and put down lawlessness. For those nostalgic for the era when Black people were subject to any white person’s authority and those accused of stealing could be killed by any ordinary white civilian with impunity , it is, of course, reasonable for a teenager to travel across state lines and shoot into a crowd suspected of property damage. To those for whom Black lives do not matter unless they are property, it is no more improper to chase and shoot “the Blacks” that refuse to remain in their chains than it is to shoot rabid horses in a barn.

The Nazis have not disappeared; they have just said that they are not Nazis. This has proven enough to shake the bloodhounds of liberal investigative journalism and scholarship off of their trail. But it need not confuse the dispassionate observer.

When examining the photos of the corrections officer mock-killing George Floyd before a Trump banner affixed to the rear window of a pick-up truck, one might reflect upon why that particular banner was chosen. It is rare for campaign hats to be worn throughout the entire first term or as props for shows of white supremacist aggression. George W Bush merchandise and campaign signs were not often sported in neo-Nazi rallies, neither was Hilary Clinton’s name routinely spat at visible minorities as if to punctuate racist attacks. There are only two dots; they are quite easy to connect. One struggles to draw the line because the pencil is gripped by anti-Blackness.
The cognitive dissonance required to misrecognise this four-year-long Kristallnacht is helped along by the deep-seated misrecognition of the humanity in Black people. You do not need to affix a yellow Star of David to the clothes to dehumanise a people who are shot at for saying their lives matter.

Hitler called America a mongrel nation. The current administration – ably helped by its enthusiastic civilian volunteers – has set itself to the task of de-mongrelisation. Those who “cry Nazism” are told they are being alarmist and that it cannot happen here. It has happened here. It is happening here, constantly. But the life and lives of the victims of the American holocausts, Black and Indigenous, do not matter. Their persecution is normalised. Their massacre is referred to as a flawed past. There is no “never again” in a country of holocaust-deniers.

It is not good to kill people while they protest against arbitrary and racist murder. This is not clear in America. Those who await that particular train of enlightenment to arrive should check beneath their shoes. Ensure that the grave you stand upon does not continue to go unmarked. In fact, consider leaving the crowded station altogether. If white supremacist past is prologue, the next train is pulling cattle cars.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
 

Shaka54

FKA Shaka38
Platinum Member
From Sept 2020



It is sometimes said that when someone resorts to making comparisons to Adolf Hitler during a debate they have lost. Comparing mandatory pandemic lockdowns or the near-forced labour of “essential workers” and educators to Nazi policy may indeed, at times, be overly-dramatic.

But when what is being criticised is the instinct to shout “Sieg Heil”, campaign slogans bearing the name of American Nazi sympathiser organisations, plans to stop a “demographic bomb” and prevent the breaking down of “the white, male power structure”, when the society criticised is one in which white supremacists kill protesters protesting against the state killings of an ethnic minority, when a senior adviser to the president promoted materials on the theme of white genocide and the top writer for the most popular news programme in the country wrote posts about intellectual deficiencies in Asian and Black people, the comparison is not always out of place.

There have been several nights of broken glass in the history of the American colony. Several dark-skinned Anne Franks hiding in the exposed roots of trees covered in spruce pine and red onion to throw off the tracking dogs. Holocausts, pogroms are a dime a dozen, extermination attempts, mass internment, cattle cars, but its primary targets were Black and Indigenous – populations whose lives and deaths are still considered to be of little consequence.

As a result, the society built upon a gulag continues to be called a great experiment in democracy. Atrocities committed against non-white people are trivialised and reduced to “the imperfections” of an “imperfect nation”. The tonnage of blood and flesh peeled from whipping posts, Black town burnings, and “Indian Wars” are but flecks of dust floating against a harmonious, pioneering white settlement destined to civilise the world.
More a Merkers Mine than a state, the slave colony where Black life was waterboarded between the threshing wheel of slave production and the thin air of “race riots” is, even in 2020, seen by many as the birthplace of modern liberty. This is because embedded in both the colony’s structure – and in the minds of its admirers – is the fact that Black people do not count. If Black lives mattered, the lights shining from the shining city on the hill would be known to be concentration camp searchlights. If Black lives mattered, globally, America would be a pariah state.

Leftists will watch racists genuflect before a president who hugs the flag. They will watch protesters taken away in unmarked vans for protesting the arbitrary state murder of Black people and cry: “fascism!”

But there is a particular form of fascism to which the American state conforms. A fascism that is organised around the logic of white nationalism, the destruction, exploitation and expelling of ethnic minorities, and white political supremacy. The charge of fascism conveniently leaves out or makes subordinate the race hatred that fuels, enables and is the primary reason for the support of this burgeoning authoritarianism.

A leftist that comes away from reading the history of Nazi Germany denouncing, first, the Third Reich’s subversion of political norms, should be suspected of anti-Semitism. A leftist who warns of the rise of fascism as evidenced by the destruction of mail-sorting machines and the appearance of unmarked vehicles at protests in a country that has prison farms, is one for whom Black life has not counted.

As many have laboured to remind this society, Hitler’s genocidal project was inspired by (if not a tribute to) the American colony. Contrary to the racist claim that racism is un-American, it is more accurate to say that the Third Reich was a type of Americanism.

European innovation and efficiency were added to the blood quantum laws, Black codes, eugenics, forced relocation, work camps, and killing fields of rugged America. Slave ships to cattle cars, Tuskegee experiments to Josef Mengele, the Nazi project was less an otherworldly “radical evil” that came out of nowhere than it was a facsimile of the white supremacist order of the colonies.

It remains an entirely strange thing to shoot into a crowd of protesters protesting against police anti-Blackness and killings. Stranger still, is to wish Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager who killed two people and injured one, to be president. And for the leader of the country to come to his defence.
It does, however, follow exactly the logic of Nazism. Whereas firing automatic weapons into a crowd and killing scores in Paris is seen as evidence of the collapse of Europe under “Islamofascistic” terror – often by the very same conservatives and religious groups who now come to the aid of Rittenhouse – the killing of the people protesting against the centuries-long tradition of white right to the pleasurable destruction of dark-skinned people is to be excused.

In America, white supremacists are handled as if the Shoah never happened. As if a civil war was not fought to maintain their power to destroy the flesh and aspirations of dark-skinned bodies at will, and keep them in perpetual sexual and physical torture.

Even now the president and conservatives sacralise the battle flag of that effort and decry the felling of monuments to its child abusers. In America, white supremacists are given water bottles and all but deputised to put down a Black uprising against pleasure-killing. Like all white supremacist colonies, in America, the white settler is expected to be the colony’s auxiliary force. In the colony, the Allgemeine SS is always already assembled.
White supremacists are treated as if modernity is not a holocaust they got away with. As if they do not speak of and attempt to launch and carry out race wars to this day, to infiltrate security forces they deem not sufficiently white supremacist and to perpetrate mass killings. Devotees of a death-cult to pink pigmentation, responsible for murders from Goa to Gambia, are given more benefit of the doubt than a Black boy in a convenience store.

Republicans invited white people brandishing weapons at protesters to speak at their national convention. Days later, a white person killed protesters with an automatic weapon. This has not led to contrition. On the contrary, the killer is being praised and defended by police and politicians and funds are being raised for his legal defence. The killing of protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is being given tacit approval. This is not without precedent. For instance, the pogrom on German Jews of November 9-10, 1938, was not pushed back against by Nazi leaders. Presumably, white liberals were imploring the Fuhrer to turn around and heal the country then as well.

If the boy who killed the protestors in Kenosha erred, it was that he was too eager. A bit more patience and the aspiring officer would have the murder laundered as police error. Now conservatives must assemble a patchwork of defences. They say he travelled to defend property and put down lawlessness. For those nostalgic for the era when Black people were subject to any white person’s authority and those accused of stealing could be killed by any ordinary white civilian with impunity , it is, of course, reasonable for a teenager to travel across state lines and shoot into a crowd suspected of property damage. To those for whom Black lives do not matter unless they are property, it is no more improper to chase and shoot “the Blacks” that refuse to remain in their chains than it is to shoot rabid horses in a barn.

The Nazis have not disappeared; they have just said that they are not Nazis. This has proven enough to shake the bloodhounds of liberal investigative journalism and scholarship off of their trail. But it need not confuse the dispassionate observer.

When examining the photos of the corrections officer mock-killing George Floyd before a Trump banner affixed to the rear window of a pick-up truck, one might reflect upon why that particular banner was chosen. It is rare for campaign hats to be worn throughout the entire first term or as props for shows of white supremacist aggression. George W Bush merchandise and campaign signs were not often sported in neo-Nazi rallies, neither was Hilary Clinton’s name routinely spat at visible minorities as if to punctuate racist attacks. There are only two dots; they are quite easy to connect. One struggles to draw the line because the pencil is gripped by anti-Blackness.
The cognitive dissonance required to misrecognise this four-year-long Kristallnacht is helped along by the deep-seated misrecognition of the humanity in Black people. You do not need to affix a yellow Star of David to the clothes to dehumanise a people who are shot at for saying their lives matter.

Hitler called America a mongrel nation. The current administration – ably helped by its enthusiastic civilian volunteers – has set itself to the task of de-mongrelisation. Those who “cry Nazism” are told they are being alarmist and that it cannot happen here. It has happened here. It is happening here, constantly. But the life and lives of the victims of the American holocausts, Black and Indigenous, do not matter. Their persecution is normalised. Their massacre is referred to as a flawed past. There is no “never again” in a country of holocaust-deniers.

It is not good to kill people while they protest against arbitrary and racist murder. This is not clear in America. Those who await that particular train of enlightenment to arrive should check beneath their shoes. Ensure that the grave you stand upon does not continue to go unmarked. In fact, consider leaving the crowded station altogether. If white supremacist past is prologue, the next train is pulling cattle cars.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

This article needs to be posted in that Rittenhouse thread too. There are several who could stand to read this well written piece.
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina city is paying $650,000 to a Black man who was stomped in the head by a white police officer upset that the man could not quickly lie flat on his stomach because of rods and pins in his leg.

Orangeburg officials also have apologized to Clarence Gailyard and are reviewing the police department's use of force policies, City Administrator Sidney Evering said in a statement released by Gailyard's lawyer Justin Bamberg. The city's insurance will cover the payment.

Gailyard was walking with a stick wrapped in shiny tape on July 26 when someone mistook the reflective object for a gun and called 911, investigators said.

Orangeburg Public Safety Officer David Lance Dukes ordered Gailyard to the ground and when the 58-year-old didn't immediately drop, the officer stomped on his head and neck, causing his forehead to hit the concrete of the parking lot, according to police body camera video.

Gailyard said he moved slowly and often walks with a cane because of pins and rods in his leg from being hit by a vehicle while riding a bicycle. He also said he was carrying the stick to protect himself from potential dog attacks.

The city's statement said most officers do their difficult jobs well — a second officer tried to calm the situation and told a supervisor who came to the scene later that Dukes lied about his actions — but swift, fair action must be taken when officers do wrong.

“When an officer falls short of these expectations and conducts themselves in ways unbecoming to their department and the City, that officer must and will be held accountable,” Evering said.

Dukes, 38, was fired two days after the incident and charged with felony first-degree assault and battery a few days after that. His lawyer has said the former officer is fully cooperating with state police in what he called a difficult and unfortunate situation.


Gailyard's lawyer said he appreciated how quickly Orangeburg worked to both help Gailyard and change the culture of a police department which had seen three years of increasing use-of-force case where 75% of the 13,000 residents are Black.

The police chief retired shortly after the incident and the department's interim chief is reviewing use of force rules. The force is also creating a group of citizens to oversee how officers treat people, the city said.

“I’ve handled numerous cases involving police violence previously and rarely have I seen a city swiftly accept responsibility and also work to ensure that this never happens to another person,” Bamberg said.

Gailyard is happy to put what happened behind him, Bamberg said.

Gailyard spoke to reporters a few weeks after he was hurt.

“Every time I look in the mirror, I see the scar on my forehead, and it’s not OK. The only thing I want the community to do is change,” Gailyard said.
 

Shaka54

FKA Shaka38
Platinum Member

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina city is paying $650,000 to a Black man who was stomped in the head by a white police officer upset that the man could not quickly lie flat on his stomach because of rods and pins in his leg.

Orangeburg officials also have apologized to Clarence Gailyard and are reviewing the police department's use of force policies, City Administrator Sidney Evering said in a statement released by Gailyard's lawyer Justin Bamberg. The city's insurance will cover the payment.

Gailyard was walking with a stick wrapped in shiny tape on July 26 when someone mistook the reflective object for a gun and called 911, investigators said.

Orangeburg Public Safety Officer David Lance Dukes ordered Gailyard to the ground and when the 58-year-old didn't immediately drop, the officer stomped on his head and neck, causing his forehead to hit the concrete of the parking lot, according to police body camera video.

Gailyard said he moved slowly and often walks with a cane because of pins and rods in his leg from being hit by a vehicle while riding a bicycle. He also said he was carrying the stick to protect himself from potential dog attacks.

The city's statement said most officers do their difficult jobs well — a second officer tried to calm the situation and told a supervisor who came to the scene later that Dukes lied about his actions — but swift, fair action must be taken when officers do wrong.

“When an officer falls short of these expectations and conducts themselves in ways unbecoming to their department and the City, that officer must and will be held accountable,” Evering said.

Dukes, 38, was fired two days after the incident and charged with felony first-degree assault and battery a few days after that. His lawyer has said the former officer is fully cooperating with state police in what he called a difficult and unfortunate situation.


Gailyard's lawyer said he appreciated how quickly Orangeburg worked to both help Gailyard and change the culture of a police department which had seen three years of increasing use-of-force case where 75% of the 13,000 residents are Black.

The police chief retired shortly after the incident and the department's interim chief is reviewing use of force rules. The force is also creating a group of citizens to oversee how officers treat people, the city said.

“I’ve handled numerous cases involving police violence previously and rarely have I seen a city swiftly accept responsibility and also work to ensure that this never happens to another person,” Bamberg said.

Gailyard is happy to put what happened behind him, Bamberg said.

Gailyard spoke to reporters a few weeks after he was hurt.

“Every time I look in the mirror, I see the scar on my forehead, and it’s not OK. The only thing I want the community to do is change,” Gailyard said.
That's good to hear. I just saw the footage of the incident last month on one of those Audit the Police channels.
 

Shaka54

FKA Shaka38
Platinum Member

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member

In three courtrooms, in three American cities, the same familiar scene is unfolding. With arrogance, disdain, and even laughter, white men who have committed egregious acts of violence in the name of white supremacy are supposedly facing consequences. But rather than criminal trials—or in the Charlottesville, Virginia, case, a civil trial—we are watching how baked into the justice system white supremacy really is.


From the joke of a jury selection in the Ahmaud Arbery case to the utilization of the courtroom in Charlottesville by defendants who represent 14 white supremacists organizations as a platform to spew racist vitriol, the disparity between justice and what America has dressed up and sold to us as such is laid bare.


Most alarming is that no matter how offensive or anti-Black, none of the actions of the judges, prosecutors, or defendants themselves is outside of American law.


It wasn’t outside of the law for the defense in the Arbery proceedings to seek a mistrial because Black pastors had the nerve to enter the courtroom or a Black mother cried out with ancestral rage at pictures of her son’s murdered body.


It wasn’t illegal for the judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial to prevent the prosecution from calling the two people Rittenhouse killed, and one he injured, “victims,” while simultaneously granting the defense permission to call those protesting a cop shooting Jacob Blake seven times in the back “rioters” and “looters.”


Apparently it is not out of order for the judge overseeing the civil case against organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville to force Devin Willis, a plaintiff in the case, to give up the names of his friends during cross examination by Christopher Cantwell, a neo-Nazi defendent who’s acting as his own attorney in the proceedings. These names were then spread across white supremacist chat rooms, along with photos and addresses, literally endangering the lives of yet even more Black people.


None of these—or any of the other egregious actions we’ve witnessed in these trials—are outside the bounds of American justice. They are, however, way out of bounds of anything that anyone with a moral compass would define as justice.


They are certainly a clear and deafening message to Black people that this system doesn’t work for us whether we are in the defendant’s chair or the victims’ casket.


These institutions were not built to be just or fair and certainly not equitable. They were built to uphold race-based capitalism, white supremacy, and white male dominance.


They were built to control, regulate, and normalize violence and oppression against Black bodies. To hold sacred the vision of America’s slaveholding Founding Fathers and ensure a status quo of oppression is the everlasting legacy of this nation.


Ironically, if we (Black people) demand the courts live up to their own standards, we are in essence demanding the courts continue to funnel Black bodies into jails, prisons, and graveyards.


Demanding justice via the violence of the carceral state is to allow “them” to prove this system works if and when people like Rittenhouse are held “accountable.” But, it is not usually the Rittenhouses of the world sitting in that defendant’s chair. It’s usually us.


Our righteous calls for justice are used to validate systems that replaced chattel slavery and lynch mobs and have us begging for breadcrumbs to continue feeding the beast that devours us.


But what recourse do we have? Where do we find the balm for our pain? What is justice? Does jailing these white men or emptying the bank accounts of white nationalist organizations end white violence against Black bodies, ease the anxiety of walking American streets while Black and breathing, or interrupt the trauma that is literally eating away our insides?


No.


We know this logically. Rationally. Tens of thousands of us are watching—with bated breath—knowing there cannot be justice within the confines of these courts. As has been said countless times before, you cannot use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.


Yet, even some of the staunchest Black abolitionists are hoping (albeit quietly) for just a little bit of healing that—within the confines of our current paradigm—can only come from the conviction and jailing of these monsters who have wreaked such havoc on Black minds, bodies, and souls and the allies who have dared to stand with us.


Some of us would be able to take one whole inhalation if these white folks had to choke, just a little, on the bitterness of America’s brand of so-called justice.


Even me.


I don’t believe the road to abolition is paved by building transformative justice models for the folks who are hunting or killing us. Let’s perfect the model for the D-boys and street hustlers losing at America’s economic game first. Once we’ve got us right, we can worry about cops and white vigilantes.


Despite the wishing and wanting, whether it be engaged secretly or via screaming for their heads over Twitter, we are all bracing ourselves to collectively absorb the punch in the gut that will occur when the courts let Rittenhouse off with a slap on the hand, find a way to defend three white men trapping a Black jogger “like a rat,” and agree that it was those radical white leftists who pushed neo-Nazis to drive a car into a crowd whose only crime was asserting that Black life—despite what American justice says—actually does matter.
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
15 days and today was the first I heard about it on Maddow...



Legendary Black radio host Joe Madison is two weeks into a hunger strike that could become a risk to his health. Madison, 72, is doing it for one reason: To pressure President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress to pass voting rights legislation as the GOP actively works to restrict ballot access.

As Madison told CNN's Don Lemon on Friday, "Just as food is essential for the existence of life, voting is essential for the existence of democracy."

Madison, a civil rights activist turned SiriusXM radio host who was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2019, is so committed to the cause he is willing to put his life on the line. When I spoke to Madison on my own radio show a few days into his hunger strike, he shared that his wife asked him, "Are you telling me that you are willing to die for this cause?" He said he looked at her and responded with one word: "Yes." Madison then added passionately, "This is the new civil rights movement."

More than 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, no one should have to risk their life to ensure all Americans can exercise a constitutionally protected right to vote. But that's where we are in 2021 America thanks to the GOP. It was not Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about non-existent election fraud but his "Big Loss" in the 2020 election that has animated Republicans to pass 33 laws in 19 states since January to make it more difficult to vote. Today's GOP won't allow the democratic will of the people to stand in their way of acquiring and retaining political power.

The GOP's effort to "cancel" voting rights is a threat to all Americans who believe in democracy, regardless of race. But it is a particular threat to Black Americans, who have been targeted in Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, and who have been historically disenfranchised with Jim Crow era laws designed to make it almost impossible for them to vote without the danger of deadly violence.

Just one example is World War II veteran Maceo Snipes, who stood up to that threat when he became the only Black person to vote in the 1946 primary in Taylor County, Georgia. A few days after the election, a group of White men showed up at Snipes' door, where they asked him to step outside. When Snipes did, they shot him. Snipes later died from the shooting, and charges were never brought against his killers. Mr. Snipes, though, was far from the only Black person or allies of other races who was killed in the pursuit of access to the ballot for African Americans.

The GOP's voter suppression campaign is not only a threat to our democracy today but it's also an insult to the memory of Snipes and all others who have toiled, bled and died simply for the right to cast a ballot
.
In his first speech after defeating Trump in the 2020 election, President Biden credited Black voters for being a large part of his win. "The African American community stood up again for me," he said of the community that voted nearly 90 percent in his favor in last year's election. He then pledged, "You've always had my back, and I'll have yours."

Countless callers to my radio show who are Black have cited that line to express their disappointment in Biden's failing to have their backs on voting rights. Instead, Biden has been laser-focused for months on his infrastructure and social safety net legislation. But what's the use of shining bridges if you don't have a functioning democracy? With Biden's success last week in both signing the bipartisan infrastructure bill into law and his broader Build Back Better bill passing the House, he must now make voting rights reform his public priority.

To be fair, the Democrats in the House already passed two different voting rights bills this year, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. But Republicans in the Senate have blocked progress on both.

There has also been a glimmer of hope in recent months with the Senate Democrats drafting the Freedom to Vote Act, which would provide a national standard for federal elections as well as end partisan gerrymandering. All 50 Democratic Senators supported the bill, meaning this could pass if brought to a vote with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. But due to the filibuster requiring 10 GOP Senators to consent to even allow a vote, this measure has been blocked with not one Republican senator in support. You can see why former President Barack Obama last year called the filibuster a "Jim Crow relic," as the GOP is now using it to block legislation that would protect against voter suppression.

The Democrats' failure to make voting rights a top priority may also explain why, in the recent Virginia gubernatorial race, Black voters were a smaller percentage of the electorate (16%) than in 2020 (18%), and only 86% voted for the Democratic candidate compared to 89% who went for Biden in 2020. In a close election, this kind of drop-off can decide the winner.

In 2021, who would have thought -- as Joe Madison put it -- that we'd be engaged in a "new civil rights movement"? But this is where our nation finds itself as the GOP rejects a robust democracy in the pursuit of electoral autocracy.

It's time President Biden and the Democrats make voting rights the top issue in 2022. Biden should travel the country selling it, in addition to publicly -- and very doggedly -- pressuring Senate Democrats to end the filibuster. Biden owes that to the Black community who supported him, and to all Americans who believe that their vote and their voice matters.








Joe Madison, known widely as the host of a popular morning talk show on SiriusXM radio as well as a civil rights and human rights activist, has long been an advocate for voting rights. However, the failure to move the John Lewis Voting Rights Act through the Senate because of Republican filibustering is pushing him to take a more drastic step to encourage its passage.

Last week the 72-year-old radio legend, also known as the “Black Eagle” began a hunger strike to send a strong message about why it needs to be passed and that he is willing to continue to go without solid food for as long as it takes.

The Lewis bill would have restored vital provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that protect citizens’ ability to cast ballots. But Republican lawmakers in the Senate stonewalled the legislation using the filibuster, which is simply an extended debate over legislation that would take 60 votes to overcome. Still, Democrats did not have despite having a majority.

Madison realizes that what he is doing does not come without risk, but this is also not his first time using this method of protest. In fact, human rights icon Dick Gregory was a mentor of his, and he had joined him in hunger strikes decades ago.

Madison spoke with BET.com about why he is doing this and what he hopes to accomplish with this strike.

BET.com: There are many ways to protest, such as marches, social media campaigns, boycotts. Why do something so extreme? Why a hunger strike?

Joe Madison: Because what the United States Senate is doing is extreme—this is what it’s going to take. I think that abstaining from eating solid food sends a signal that somebody out here cares.

I always try to relate historically. At the end of the first Reconstruction in 1877, with the Hayes- Tilden compromise, white southerners were very upset with how their political power had changed, and they agreed to strike a deal with [President Rutherford B.] Hayes. That resulted in assassinations, intimidation of Black politicians and citizens and their white allies.

For the next 70 plus years, it literally changed the culture of the South. And it ended, in essence, the first Reconstruction. We are on the verge of what I would refer to as the end of the second Reconstruction.

There have been some parallels. The first thing the Republicans went after in the Senate was our voting rights. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a decision in Shelby County v. Holder that stripped one of the key provisions from the Voting Rights Act, and immediately the next day, states started introducing voter suppression laws.

Donald Trump loses the presidential election, in large part because of the voting power of Blacks in Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. After that, legislators in 49 states introduced over 400 voting rights and voter suppression laws, and 19 states enacted voter restriction laws.
So the point I’m making is we are seeing a similar reaction with people in this country who are using voter restriction laws to take away our political power.

BET.com: This is day nine; how are you feeling?

Madison: My spirits are high, but I've done this before. This is not my first rodeo. I've been on hunger strikes with Dick Gregory over the years. That experience taught me a lot. Your body goes through changes but all the changes I had anticipated. So nothing is going on, physically, spiritually, mentally, that I hadn't expected because I knew that there was the possibility that I would be in this for the long haul.
One of the things that I did before taking this form of protest was to get a physical and get a baseline of where I am physically. The only challenge that I thought I might have was a PSA that had spiked a few weeks ago, unrelated to the hunger strike. But the oncologist told me that the hunger strike would not impact any prostate cancer problems that I had experienced. So it's something that everything that I anticipated is pretty much what I'm going through.

BET.com: So the Senate, Democrats in the House have pushed the John Lewis voting rights act through, but it's come up against a brick wall thanks to Republicans and filibustering. Do you think they are taking what you are doing seriously?

Madison: I think we have to admit that it certainly was a low point in Senate history. The Republican senators walked away and rejected our right to have unobstructed voting. That's why I took the position to reject solid food until at least 10 Republican senators would support a fundamental right of our Democracy.

Food is essential to the sustaining of life. Well, so is the vote fundamental to sustaining Democracy. So I can't answer that question, I don't know. Since I began my hunger strike, I haven't heard from a single Republican U.S. Senator. But—and I'm picking my words very carefully—I think it is rather hypocritical of them to suggest that the Black vote is important and then turn around and not protect that right to vote. Plus, state legislators have introduced voter suppression laws that strip our rights away from us.

For example, taking away "Souls To The Polls" in some states; state legislators who are now in the process of redrawing congressional districts and state legislative districts; eliminating congressional seats that are that are important to particularly African Americans like in Texas, redrawing a congressional district that has that has Sheila Jackson Lee running against Al Green and forcing them into court to to prevent that from from happening.

So this is a red herring. They are interested in introducing something that boils down to nothing more than going after and curtailing the Black vote, the vote of young people, and the vote of people with disabilities—therefore limiting the political power of all of the groups mentioned above.

BET.com: I know you're determined and serious. Are there others joining you in the strike?

Madison: I've heard that people have, and people have asked. But I do not encourage that. This is very personal to me. But what I think people need to understand is that this is not about a moment but a movement. The one thing we have to realize is that all movements require sacrifice. So we have to be prepared, all of us, to make whatever sacrifices we think will get us to where we need to go.

I'm doing this in solidarity with organizations that have been demonstrating, like People for the American Way, the NAACP, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

So, this is my way of making not only a political but a moral protest. Hunger strikes are not new. I encourage people to do what they think is best to move the needle on getting either the Republicans to do what's right or support the Democrats that have introduced and voted on the John Lewis bill and are prepared to vote on other voting rights protection.

BET.com: Earlier this year, I would have thought that with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, voting rights would quickly have passed. But we're going into the 2022 midterms with potential losses in both houses. These bills may be even more threatened. What should the strategy be, then?

Madison: The reason it's been difficult is because of the filibuster. That's why I am encouraging President Biden. He has to clear the path, which means either adjusting or eliminating that archaic rule that the Senate has called the filibuster.

I can tell you that if the House and the Senate switch in the midterm elections, to be honest with you, all bets are off because Donald Trump would, in essence, do what the white southerners did at the end of the first Reconstruction, and we would see our our our voting power diminished.

BET.com: Dick Gregory is the first person who comes to mind when I think of hunger strikes. He's done them for everything from Native American rights to protesting Vietnam to fighting police brutality. What roadmap did he leave you for doing this?

Madison: The roadmap was first a lack of fear, one. Two, he taught me how to meditate, and that's extremely important (laughs). I laugh because food is everywhere. When all of a sudden you abstain from something, you realize how prevalent it is. One of the things he did was put together a team of individuals, doctors, and nutritionists. And I reached out to Christian Gregory, his Son. I talked to him; he and I reviewed Dick's formula.
I'm taking an approach with no solid foods, a lot of meditation, and on and off days with juices and water. And that's the formula that I learned from Dick Gregory. One of the most prolonged hunger strikes that I went on with his guidance was three months.

BET.com: You said you intend to carry this strike forward until the John Lewis Act or the Freedom to Vote Act is passed. That may be a while, so politically, what is your message?

Madison: My message is very clear: There is nothing more important than the vote. I'm saying to you, I'm saying to them, I'm saying to the president of the United States, it is as important if not more important than the infrastructure bill he just signed. The reason I say that is we put that pen in his hand in which he signed that bill into law. Our vote gave him the power to do what he had to do to get this historical transformational bill passed. It all started with the vote.

So that's the message that I'm sending. Voting is essential to maintaining Democracy as food is essential to maintaining life. I don't think it has to be overstated. I don't think it's complicated.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.




 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
You stay dropping gems Camille...keep up the great posts.


I tried to find the info on the history of this of Black kos and the issues they've had at dkos, but I couldn't find it. Black Kos is a long time Daily Kos diarist. At one point he had his own site. There were a bunch of black bloggers that left dailykos, because of racial tensions there. You know how some white progressives don't want to deal with black issues. He is known for calling our racism on dkos. He would drop diary's ever so often under Tuesdays Chile. I don't follow him as much as I used to. I think I had joined his site at one time, but I can't find the link, if it still exists. He has hundreds of thought provoking diaries.

Here is his profile:

Blog:


 

Politic Negro

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Before this chiefs hiring this year Arlington PD have several cases of killing unarmed citizens.






 

Shaka54

FKA Shaka38
Platinum Member
Before this chiefs hiring this year Arlington PD have several cases of killing unarmed citizens.







The thin blue line is trying to scapegoat the Brotha. They're willing to turn on HIM rather than see some random beat cop be dismissed.
 
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