It might be unpopular but it’s also true that the EXACT same nuance is required to understand why the Black American voting majority enthusiastically supported both the “crime bill” in 1994 AND Bill & Hillary Clinton from the 90s until now.
Feels like I’ve mentioned this blindspot umpteen times before, but here it goes again for the nosebleed seats. People need to understand that “defund the police” rhetoric on the far left inevitably catalyzes White fearmongering about Black “lawlessness” on the far right. 🙃
In other words, the folk whose main goal is perpetuating fuckery of the Democratic party’s agenda and its marginalized base want nothing more than to paint BIPOC communities as resistant to law & order while simultaneously aiding & abetting White supremacist domestic terrorism.
What none of these agitators & instigators want you to know is that it was the pragmatism and altruism of the Black American voting majority that forged a centrist but right leaning, bipartisan, 90s era coalition that had the VOTES to pass an assault weapons ban & VAWA.
Hello.
Yeah, I said assault weapons ban. Black folks were fully on board with that and VAWA b/c the White powers that be made sure to flood our cities with guns, drugs, alcohol/tobacco and a bloodthirsty “war on drugs” police force that decimated the Black community in the *1960s-80s*.
In case you’re keeping track at home, this is also the same fucked up Black “lawlessness” line of “reasoning” (on both the far left & far right 🧲) at the root of “Kamala’s a cop” propaganda. The aim is ALWAYS to paint Black folk as criminals who fundamentally don’t abide laws.
Ultimately their objective is to fearmonger us out of doing police AND gun reform b/c the end result is maintenance of the status quo, more guns on the street, more crime, more death, more chaos, more anger, more confusion, more Whitelash & MORE Republican destruction of America.
Bottom line is DO NOT fall for this “defund the police” bait & switch bullshit. Look no further than the very telling reality that the FOP hasn’t lifted a fucking finger to increase their own safety by supporting gun reform. More guns & crime = more 💰 = Job Security. #WakeTFUp
We have less than 9 months to get our asses in gear for the next election. If you’re so busy arguing the finer points of “defund” v. “reallocate” that you’re sidelining reform of America’s gun fetishism & racist/militarized police force, you’re on the loud & wrong battlefield. ☠️
As @JonathanMetzl so eloquently advised us re: the pitfalls of the CRT “debate” during our book club discussion, we can’t afford to get distracted by the semantics of public policy when our GOP opposition is purposely stoking Whitelash for POWER. #DyingOfWhitenessWithJonAndJane
Since y’all are here for it, here’s yet another reason PJB has NO fucks to give about telling the “defund the police” crowd to either shut the hell up or find a better slogan. He’s been to the “defend the police” Whitelash rodeo before & knows this is the fuckery of DISTRACTION.
Let me address this now (again) b/c folk keep asking: NO I’M STILL NOT opening an account on any other social media platform. Y’all are asking this of a Black, native Texan woman whose entire family tree is Black native Texan. *I don’t flee for the Confederacy’s benefit.*
Y’all can feel free to do what sits right in your spirit but I’m not scared of a damn tweet. I walk around IRL as a Black woman knowing full well that my gracefully unbothered existence in spaces racists don’t want me in is an act of civil disobedience, protest & radicalism.
Not only that but what point is even being proven right now other than a real time illustration of how easy and uncomplicated it was (still is) for certain folk to flee to bluer, “safer” territory for the Confederacy’s benefit while the space they fled becomes more Confederate?
1 more blast from the past since folk still can’t do math or handle the truth. Ds are still contending with #WeakAssUnreliableAllies who “swing” in & out of the ⛺️ on a whim based on White/White adjacent grievance every 2-4 yrs and make maintaining a winning coalition impossible.
Matter of fact, miss me with the feigned confusion altogether b/c it’s BEEN plain as fucking day that culture wars are all the GOP has left and that WW (specifically) were/are susceptible to said wars to the extent that their bigotry is superseding their woman/motherhood.
After years of xenophobic klan sentiment on the GOP campaign trail, the El Paso shooter drove ~10 hrs to gun down Hispanic Texans on White supremacy/nationalism’s behalf. The anti-Haitian rhetoric propagated by Trump/Vance/MAGA isn’t just a hateful lie, it’s stochastic terrorism.
Nobody gets to pretend the writing hasn’t been on the wall since Birtherism and Trump’s promise to build a wall but make Mexico pay for it. They tell us to “remember the Alamo” but expect us to forget El Paso, Buffalo, Pittsburgh (Tree of Life) and the Atlanta spa shootings.
I don’t wanna hear shit else about Trump or the GOP “toning down their rhetoric” when the volume of the klan rally’s been at 💯 since 9/11 which is technically only a slight uptick from what they’ve been doing to Indigenous, Black and Brown people on American soil for CENTURIES.
If JD doesn’t know any professional women who are happily married moms, he should just say that. 🙄 I had my 1st son 6 weeks before my Masters graduation/3 months before residency. My 2nd son was born 2 weeks before residency graduation. I prioritize EVERYTHING altogether, MFer!
This reminds me of 1 of my fave scenes in 1 of my fave movies, ‘Baby Boom’, when J.C. (Diane) finally accepts motherhood/a career change and tells her male colleagues, “I don’t want it all.” We’ve learned how to juggle kids & work without being miserable. vice.com/en/article/did…
Which is also why chauvinistic jerks like JD have so much shit to talk about us. They’re mad that their ploy to make motherhood & marriage incompatible with a profession has failed miserably and that they still have to compete and share power with us in the workforce and at home.
I recently saw a patient whom I’ve been seeing for almost 6 months and when I asked how he’s been doing since our last visit 6 weeks ago, among a laundry list of stressors, he said “there’s gonna be a civil war and I’m gonna end up dead.” 🥴🫣
It was telling b/c he’d never uttered that type of rhetoric with me before & the only thing that changed between visits was Biden passing the torch to Kamala. He mentioned it in passing then quickly moved onto something else but he said it like civil war was suddenly inevitable.
The other thing is I don’t know his political alignment and we’ve never discussed it but when White men of a certain age and geography say shit like that all I hear is nostalgia for the Confederacy. 🤷🏾♀️ They’re reflexively threatening civil war in anticipation of electoral defeat.