Is this what the Republican Party stands for and wants to be known for in the 21st century? Taking $250,000 from Memphis as a punitive act for removing representations of racism is simply puerile. 1/x apnews.com/17ec9774415240…
There is plenty to be angry about in our country right now, but the bald bigotry on display by Republicans in the Tennessee legislature is simply galling. The majority of Memphis residents are black. This budget cut and the demographics of that city are not unrelated. 2/x
Remember that legislators have been so recalcitrant about removing Confederate monuments, that Memphis officials had to sell the property to a private business which then removed the monuments under cover of night. 3/x
Also remember that this retribution from the Tennessee Legislature comes just two week after events in Memphis commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. They are still trying to kill the dream. 4/x
How many of these Republican lawmakers quoted King on the anniversary of his murder and then supported a measure to “punish” an entire city for its stance against racism? 5/x
How many of the people who supported this measure are Christian and evangelical? Do they see justice in a group of states seceding in order to perpetuate the institution of slavery and then honoring the leaders of that failed rebellion more than 150 years later? 6/x
It would be grand if the thousands of evangelicals who descended on Memphis for the #MLK50Conference and heard soaring speeches about racial unity would contact these legislators and express their opposition to taking $250,000 away from the city’s bicentennial celebration. 7/x
These are the moments when black Christians know their allies by their actions versus those who stand by and mouth “pious irrelevancies” in the face of political prejudice and injustice. 8/8
