Politics and Current
Biden to designate 1908 Springfield race riot site as national monument
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — President Joe Biden is scheduled to sign a proclamation Friday establishing a national monument in Springfield, Illinois, site of a 1908 race riot that later helped found the NAACP.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that the ceremony will happen Friday within the Oval Office and will probably be attended by civil rights and community leaders from Springfield, the hometown of President Abraham Lincoln.
The ceremony comes just 5 1/2 weeks after Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old black woman, was shot and killed by a white sheriff’s deputy in her Springfield home after she called 911 for help. Massey’s relations and supporters gathered for a news conference Wednesday as a part of an ongoing push for justice within the prosecution of Deputy Sean Grayson, who has been charged with first-degree murder in her death.
“People are starting to pay attention because it’s an untold story,” Teresa Haley, former president of the Springfield NAACP, said of the riots. “It’s a deep, dark, dirty secret that Springfield is afraid of.”
“It’s tragic. It’s sad that it’s happening right after Sonya Massey, but let’s say her name — Sonya Massey — and if the president, the vice president and everybody else has to recognize that and make it happen, then it’s high time,” continued Haley, founding father of Visions 1908, a civil rights, social and economic justice, and education group.
Biden’s designation doesn’t create a marker, although a memorial to the centennial stands in Union Square Park downtown. But Haley has promoted a big, reflective, walk-through memorial on the site of the foundations of 5 original homes burned in the course of the riots, which were excavated during rail work in 2014. That project is awaiting funding.
In August 1908, crowds of white residents marched through the Illinois capital on the pretext of executing two black men—one who had been imprisoned on charges of sexually assaulting a white woman, the opposite convicted of a separate murder of a white man.
After authorities secretly moved the prisoners out of the jail and sent them to one other jail many miles away, the mob took its anger out on town’s black population. Over the following few days, two innocent black men were hanged, dozens of homes and businesses in majority-black neighborhoods in Springfield were burned to the bottom, and families were forced to flee.
The National Guard was called in to restore order. White rioters were charged but later acquitted of their role within the lynching and destruction.
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According to newspaper accounts from the time, at the least eight white people were killed and greater than 100 were injured within the violence, mostly by members of the state militia or one another. It shouldn’t be known what number of blacks were injured or killed.
Frustrated civil rights leaders met in New York and selected the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, February 12, 1909, for the formation of the NAACP, whose first board of directors was scholar W. E. B. DuBois.
Sontae Massey, who was very close to his cousin Sonya Massey, said the family descends from William Donegan, an 84-year-old shoemaker who was married to a white woman who was lynched on the primary night of the riots. Now, the present generation is coping with the tragic lack of one other member of the family.
“It’s ironic that we’re now at the very foundation of what this family has stood for for hundreds of years. We’re going to continue to make a difference across America. This is just the beginning,” Massey said. “It’s only right. We’ve been catalysts for change since 1908. We’re carrying on the tradition.”
The Springfield attack occurred greater than a decade before at the least 25 documented attacks by whites on blacks that occurred in the summertime of 1919, an event that later became known as the “Red Summer” for the bloodshed that followed.
Two years later, a white mob ransacked and set fire to Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood, killing as many as 300 black residents. Biden traveled to Tulsa in 2021 to mark the a hundredth anniversary of the massacre.
Jean-Pierre called the Springfield riots “a horrific attack by a white mob on a black community” and said civil rights leaders were working to publicize what happened “to spark a nationwide civil rights movement.” She promised the White House would supply more details before an official announcement Friday.
In 2020, the riot site near downtown Springfield was added to the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network, a group of web sites and programs that tell the story of the civil rights movement. The sites can be found through federal grants.
“While the 1908 Springfield race riots illustrate our country’s deep history of racial violence, they also sparked the founding of the NAACP — reflecting the strength and resilience of black Americans in their tireless fight for civil rights,” said U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, whose office said she urged Biden to designate the monument. “Today’s announcement is a crucial step forward to honor the memory of those killed in the 1908 attack and recognize the impact of that tragedy.”
Politics and Current
We need to have an uncomfortable conversation about America
We need to talk about cockroaches.
According to renowned entomologist Karlous Miller and John Whitfield Jr. (known for his groundbreaking research on a young fly): everyone has them. Although the mosquitoes could have killed more people throughout history than all of the wars, open borders, and Black Lives Matter protests combined, people they’re biological programmed to hate cockroaches greater than every other insect. Housefly it’s much dirtierbut cockroaches symbolize uncleanliness and misery. For many, a single dead cockroach on the lounge floor is more embarrassing than a fly within the kitchen, a mosquito in your skin, or a dead body within the basement.
Not I.
It’s not that I’m just not ashamed of them. I understand that there may be nothing I can do to erase the bulk those that survived prospered from the surface of the planet. The only thing I can do is solve the issue and forestall it from getting worse. Nobody really eliminates cockroaches, you only have to fight them every single day. But apparently there’s just one thing more embarrassing than being a cockroach hunter:
Being a part of a monoracial coalition.
According to experts, political analysts and folks who just say things, the 2024 election was a results of many aspects. For some, Trump’s genius was a matter of religion – proof of what can’t be seen. Wind bags stuffed with political opposites Joe Scarborough AND James Carville blamed Kamala Harris’ loss on the “woke era.” Others blamed the Democrats’ defeat on the party’s inability to attract white women, Latinos switching sides and the party’s lack of messaging. These may sound like different political theories, but they’re all based on the identical unspoken hypothesis. It is an unkillable pest that crawls out of its hiding place every election season. Even essentially the most progressive, outspoken experts are reluctant to address this. This shouldn’t be a theory. It is a fact hiding within the deepest, darkest recesses of each post-election postmortem. But in some way it’s
White can’t be defeated…
The unspoken concept of an invincible coalition of white voters is the breeding ground from which all political opinions are hatched. Experts not only base their analyzes on the existence of this hidden nest of Caucasian voters, but assume its inevitability… Progressive candidates will lose. A black woman cannot turn into president… it doesn’t deal with race… it doesn’t admit that trans people exist. It’s as if white persons are biologically programmed to vote against everyone else. And apparently the one way to defeat the good white cockroach of electoral politics is to pool our voting power through Black, indigenous, people of color washing their feet, eating spicy food, and playing tambourines in church, just like the BIPOCLGBTQIAvengers trying to stop white supremacist Thanos from straight finger snaps.
The tacit acceptance of white invincibility is the rationale and reason for the existence of the phrase “multi-racial coalition.” race is a greater predictor of electoral politics than sex, education and even religion. That’s why the information showing that Spanish male voters support Trump is even noteworthy. White invincibility explains why 53% white women I voted for a white woman opponent in 2016 and why 19% black men vote for white supremacist in 2020.
But what in the event that they’re fallacious?
What should you discover about it? most white women he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and never got anywhere near that result 20% of the vote by Black men? What if Latinos hadn’t moved toward Trump? What if black voters didn’t stay home? What if that is all exit polls as fallacious as ever?What if there have been no “unless”? What if sometimes in some elections you only cannot beat white people?
Does this make you are feeling uncomfortable?
When 8 out of 10 white Georgians crawled out of their hiding places to vote, Trump’s victory was inevitable. The rappers who showed up to twerk at Harris rallies didn’t matter. The pantomime guy on the Trump microphone was irrelevant. The discussion about black male voters has turn into moot. More again. Harris has greater than Biden. But even when every non-white voter in Georgia voted for Kamala Harris, she would still lose the state.
Harris winning Georgia was mathematically inconceivable.
Another example comes from the much-discussed Berks County, Pennsylvania. Everyone was shocked once they came upon about it Trump won essentially the most Latino county within the state of Pennsylvania. However, when comparing the outcomes from 2024 counting votes in individual districts down 2020 election results and the US Census shows that Harris’ campaign won more votes than Biden in each of them majority-Hispanic census tract tract within the district. Harris lost because Trump simply accrued votes and increased turnout within the whitest areas and throughout the county 74% white.
Because few states release this sort of data, we cannot have a more complete picture of what happened across the country until we see more accurate data from studies like Verified Pew Voters or A study of cooperative elections. But explaining the 2024 election is awkward. The point is that 2020 was an anomaly. It is kind of possible that the person who won second essentially the most votes within the history of American presidential politics can only be surpassed by a nationwide pandemic that gave voters unfettered access to the ballot. It may simply be that they desire a lying, corrupt white supremacist as their leader, and there may be nothing the democracy can do to stop it.
As uncomfortable as it might be to admit, possibly that is what America wants and democracy has actually won. Maybe white supremacy is like cockroaches. It’s actually inconceivable to do away with it…
You have to fight it every single day.
Politics and Current
Trump chooses first black cabinet member, not Byron Donalds
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen the first African-American cabinet member. Scott Turner, shall be SSecretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Trump announced Turner’s placement in a press release. Highlights Turner’s past achievements. The future HUD secretary is an NFL veteran who also supported Trump during his first term. The former House Representative from Texas served because the first executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council (WHORC).
The release said Turner: “Put an unprecedented effort that has transformed our nation’s most vulnerable communities. These efforts, undertaken in collaboration with former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, were maximized by Scott’s guidance in overseeing 16 federal agencies that implemented greater than 200 policy actions to support economic development.
Turner thanked President-elect Trump and his mentor Ben Carson in X’s post.
Thank you, Mr. President. I’m excited to proceed the nice work we began during your last administration at HUD, with an incredible team. I’m deeply honored by your confidence in my nomination.
I might also like to precise my sincerest gratitude to my mentor, Secretary… pic.twitter.com/X2ZJLSrfGI
— Scott Turner (@sturnerofficial) November 23, 2024
The nomination seems to come back at the fitting time. Many media outlets and social media users are questioning the shortage of Black representation in the subsequent administration’s cabinet. Especially since many black surrogates sided with Trump through the presidential campaign.
Trump’s most significant vocal deputy was Florida Congressman Byron Donalds. CNN’s Laura Coates spoke with Donalds and asked if Trump had really useful him for a cabinet position. Donalds denied feeling disrespected and continued to support the GOP’s election. The Congressman believes that achievement trumps diversity. He argues that the Biden administration has sacrificed progress for diversity, despite the fact that it has many victories on economic and social policy.
“The election of Donald Trump is approaching bringing competence and reality back to DC. within the White House, ensuring that the work gets done on behalf of the American people, no matter race, no matter religion or creed,” he said.
Turner’s nomination could decelerate the conversation concerning the lack of Black people entering the White House. The conversation is interesting since the Republican Party is not known for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in any workplace. Attacks on DEI in Republican legislatures across the state may lead one to imagine that diversifying current mandates is the ultimate piece of a really broad conservative agenda.
Politics and Current
MAGA crowd criticizes Kamala Harris for taking a vacation to Hawaii as Karine Jean-Pierre shuts down a reporter who questions the vice president’s ‘downtime’
Twelve years after his complete defeat by Republican Richard Nixon in the 1972 election, former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was asked how long it took him to get better.
“I’ll let you know when I get there” – South Dakota Democrat he joked.
So it stands to reason that Kamala Harris, who entered Election Day with an excellent probability and finished far behind Donald Trump in vote totals, could use a vacation.
“Part of the problem is that you’re running for 18 months straight,” said former Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, who lost decisively to George H. W. Bush in 1988. “Your time clock is screwed up. “Walter Mondale told me that after he lost to (Ronald) Reagan (in 1984), he woke up at 2 a.m. for months.”
Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, arrived on Hawaii’s Big Island on Tuesday and plan to stay there until next week. The Federal Aviation Administration imposed temporary flight restrictions for “VIP Traffic” from 7:15 p.m. Tuesday until noon Monday.
A Harris aide told NBC News that the trip had already been delayed because the vice president wanted to be certain it would not be needed to break a tie in the U.S. Senate to confirm President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees.
Critics say the trip to Hawaii, a Thanksgiving tradition for Harris and her family, was ill-timed as “Europe prepares for World War III,” as Daily Mail headline on the vice president’s suggested vacation story.
Others say it isn’t a good idea for the vice president to flee to Hawaii while Democrats try to determine how to take care of the debt related to the $1 billion spent on the Harris/Walz ticket. The Democratic National Committee has already been forced to fire employees without severance pay.
Asked Thursday during his every day briefing whether President Biden was considering “optically” about Harris leaving Washington “when so many DNC staffers are literally wondering what they’re going to do,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre he argued downtime is deserved.
“The vice president took time off to spend time with her family,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. (…) She’s worked very hard over the last four years, and the fact that she’s spending a few days with her family is good for her.”
But critics say Harris has had loads of time to recover from the defeat.
After securing the Democratic nomination, the vice president took several days off from the campaign, a contrast to Trump’s breakneck pace.
“No, I can not accept it. Who the hell is leaving? Trump said in October. “You have 14 days left and she is going to take a few more days off too. Do you recognize why? She’s lazy as hell and has that popularity.
While most individuals on social media supported Harris’ decision to take a break, MAGA showed no sympathy.
“She’s going to lose her job in about two months,” said one commentator on Program X. “She could definitely wait, especially since she took some time without work for the campaign after which a whole week to get better from it. I’m glad we didn’t find yourself with that lazy woman.
Others haven’t any problem with the vacation, but agree it was poorly timed.
“I do not think ‘a few days off’ is a problem, KJP. “This is the right time” said the commentator to X. “Its boss has just approved the escalation of the war in Ukraine, for example, and it looks like there is no such thing as a one in charge in the face of Putin’s threats. So possibly it’s good for her, but not for national security.
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