A Week of Three Attacks on Black State Legislators & Other Elected Officials
The recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore become not only an opportunity to talk about critical infrastructure and how we respond to disasters involving it, but it also, unfortunately, presented itself as an ugly and unnecessary reflection on racism. What should’ve been, very simply, undisturbed focus on marshaling the resources for a swift rebuild turned into nasty commentary on those in the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland who will be tasked with that endeavor.
The nation soon discovered the event happened in a city that’s 62 percent and run by a young Black male mayor in a state that’s 32 percent run by a new young Black governor. Adding to that, Maryland has the largest Black state legislative caucus in the nation and is the third most diverse legislature in the nation, with its Black House Speaker, according to the Baltimore Banner …
Certain interests lost their collective bigoted mind at the thought of Black state and local elected officials, in conjunction with needed assist from the state’s two Black members of Congress, overseeing the rebuild efforts. Instead of discussing how to quickly come up with the funds for a critical port and bridge, public discourse wasted an entire week with attacks on Black state and local elected officials.
Elsewhere …
It wasn’t just in Baltimore, either. Meanwhile in Tennessee, the state legislature’s Republican super-majority exhausted an enormous amount of time completely vacated the Tennessee State University board, reports The Tennessean …
Tennessee House Republicans on Thursday voted to vacate the entire Tennessee State University board over the outcries of Democrats as the GOP supermajority reneged on a previous deal struck in committee to keep three of the board's 10 members.
The House's move aligns it with the Senate, where Republican leadership last week indicated they would not compromise on their goal of ousting the entire board. Now, the bill will go to Gov. Bill Lee's desk and he will be tasked with appointing new members when the new law takes effect.
Republicans argued a full leadership turnover is required after a scathing state audit last year and financial issues at TSU over the years, though House Democrats on Thursday suggested wiping the board clean is retribution after the board previously refused to oust outgoing TSU President Glenda Glover.
What wasn’t discussed, however, is how the state of Tennessee has still failed to owe much of the $2.1 billion that the state has underfunded Tennessee’s largest Historically Black College and University. Instead, white Republican state legislators steam-rolled over the objections of Black state legislators in Nashville, the state capitol, who were powerless as the political minority to stop the move. The Republican governor will now handpick all of the replacements with no sign that Black state elected officials will be involved in the move.
At the same time, in that same week, a Black women mayor in Washington, D.C. along with Virginia Democrats, led by another Black woman, managed to derail a deal to move the city’s pro-basketball and hockey stadium from downtown D.C. to Alexandria, VA. This was a highly anticipated deal being engineered by Virginia’s Republican Governor, who viewed the move as a massive win for his state and his own political future (including presidential ambitions). However, due to outmaneuvering from an interesting mix of Black state and local leaders, the stadium will stay in D.C. The governor, enraged, seemed to answer back that same day with a Jim Crow-like veto of a bill that would have “… prohibited the possession of a firearm within 100 feet of a polling place, up from the current limit of 40.” He had did this before in early March. No one can explain why it’s essential to have a firearm near a polling place.