1. Jim Prince of the Neshoba Democrat in my hometown repped media at the big state dominionist prayer service this week (one of 7 centers of power); see below. @AshtonPittman and I've written about him a few times already.
2. In 2015, Jim Prince came for me because I called out a sexist comment by House speaker. He brought all the overwrought, dumb insults (basically: I'm a communist. I'm decidedly not). He was then immediate past president of @MPAnewspapers. I fired back: jacksonfreepress.com/news/2015/nov/…
3. In 2020, Jim Prince went after a minor boy who protested our hometown's Confederate statue and then ran an editorial claiming that Marxists were trying to take it down (he's kinda a one-trick pony with the red-baiting): jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/jul/…
4. @ashtonpittman included emails from Jim Prince, who has a master's in journalism from the University of Mississippi, in his #UMEmails series. In 2018, Prince withdrew support from UM because it took Ed Meek's name off the J-school this time due to a "nameless, faceless mob"
5. @MadisonJournal (Prince owns it too) ran editorial gushing over Sen. Tim Scott's declaration of "no systemic racism in America." There's racism, sure, but decidedly not baked into U.S. systems (you know, like media). onlinemadison.com/stories/editor…
6. In that @MadisonJournal editorial (and the state prayer event this week), Prince and others are engaging what I call the-Krazy-Klucker-in-the-corner strategy. Never admit systems of racism, the role of all, yes, "centers of power" in our state/nation that pass it forward.
7. Instead, we hear from people now who support(ed) and still benefit from the systems of white supremacy that it was all done by a few crazy rednecks or such, thank God all that is over, and we're sorry all them Krazy Kluckers in the Korner did that to y'all. Time to move on.
8. Of course, "moving on" without rooting out the history, truth and causes/effects of that all-hands-on-deck racism/resistance bakes in the inequities and allows same people to keep benefitting from systemic racism. And leave same mostly white men in control, reaping benefits.
9. All of this is dressed up w Christian verbiage and tucked between prayers and declarations about how awful racism used to be. Just don't try to change racism of today, or God forbid the systems that keep pumping it out, or you're painted as a Marxist for noticing the obvious.
10. That my friends, in a tiny nutshell, captures the heart of dominionism. It's about consolidating power in the hands of a few, while praying a lot. And, of course, it's an insult both to anti-theocratic democracy and people who use faith to love and support across divides.
11. Decent piece about dominion theology hold on a disturbing number of politicians. And here's a yikes from none other than Ted Cruz. It's cool for a certain religion to control the state, just not vice versa. Um, that's not democracy. texasobserver.org/dominion-theol…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The Trump propagandists continually borrows phrases from Nazi Germany and makes them talking points in their rhetoric. Lügenpresse is a big one Nazis used to discredit those who point it out. From @haaretzcom in 2017: haaretz.com/us-news/2017-1…x.com/seanmil7815897…
Here’s that U.S. Lügenpresse headline in @haaretzcom:
@haaretzcom This is how Nazis dealt with non-compliant press (that they branded “fake news”) per U.S. @HolocaustMuseum:
1. 🧵📢Amid Trump-Vance false claims of Haitians eating pets, and just in time for #DemocracyDay, my new essay connects historic dots to show similar racist attacks on immigrants in U.S. history as targeted groups shifts.
2. Despite the Chinese building Transcontinental Railroad in backbreaking work, white Americans called them every kind of name before demanding passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to block them from the U.S.—until 1943—like “rat-eaters." mississippifreepress.org/editors-note-f…
3. Among earliest immigrants U.S. whites targeted were Irish + German Catholics. Trump himself descends from a German grandpa who fled to escape draft. His heritage is Scottish and German, but DT claimed to be Swedish (as in superior Nordic) in his books. mississippifreepress.org/editors-note-f…
It's cute to watch the NO THE PARTIES DIDN'T SWITCH crowd try to reconstruct arguments on the fly when presented with evidence that it is established historic fact that white Dems fled to the new Republican Party bc national Dems embraced civil rights—and took racism with them.
Whole GOP strategy to save itself was appeal to the old Dixiecrats and their ilk. It's why politics are so broken + putrid today. All the bullshit grasping at the past to maintain and consolidate power as white America moves rapidly toward becoming the minority. Whiteness, man.
Now, mind you, Dixiecrats did not take all the bigotry (and sexism) with them to the GOP. We all know this, or should.
1. I'm inspired by @NicLott, @jarvisdortch, others to share @msfreepress and other clips involving L.Q.C. Lamar. First, learn about the Mississippi Plan (remember LQC Lamar and most white southerners were Democrats then, well before party switch): nps.gov/vick/learn/his…
2. L.Q.C. Lamar (who much of Oxford, Miss. is named for) was a slaver and rapid white supremacist (and opportunist) as we show here: this along means he deserves no statue anywhere: mississippifreepress.org/4351/the-past-…
3. L.Q.C. Lamar was a fire-eater racist who WROTE Mississippi's Articles of Secession. He was an Emory grad, and they've had a reckoning over him: news.emory.edu/stories/2022/0…
In research today, I ran across this program for Jackson convention for Mississippi's "Patriotic American Youth," where segregationists and red-baiters worked hard to create the next generation of, well, you know.
But I'm sharing it now because the "Coke breaks" tickled me.
The group, by the way, was started by Mrs. Sara McCorkle, the highest ranking woman Citizens Council leader in Mississippi, as far as I can tell. She was in charge of youth propaganda.
It's also funny that these genuises misspelled "patriotic" on the flyer for the convention the year before in downtown Jackson. Oh and read about the man giving the first night's address here (yikes): . en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S.…
1. Just clipped this for y'all for a quick Mississippi segregation academy lesson from early 1970s. There were racist segs (whites-only) and there were Citizens Council school run by Bill Simmons & his goons. Here: Hanging Moss, Manhattan, McCluer, Adams Cty Private were Council
2. Union Acad, Brandon Acad, Amite Acad, Copiah, Indianola Acad, Simpson Acad, Bayou Acad, Greenville Christian (I think), Pillow Acad, Jackson Prep were whites-only academies. Many more.
Council schools more overtly taught that Black people were born inferior; thus couldn't mix
3. Also several private schools today started as *Council* schools. That includes HIllcrest Christian Acad in South Jackson (started as Council McCluer where Phil Bryant went), Central Hinds Academy and one of the Rankin County academies.