Civil Rights & Social Justice
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Last September, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would conduct its first federal review of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. On Friday, the DOJ released the findings from its review — only about a century and three and a half years late.
As the Guardian noted, a June 1921 report on the race massacre by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, which preceded the FBI, blamed the attack that killed hundreds and leveled an entire affluent Black neighborhood on Black men and, alleging that the white perpetrators of one of the most notorious white supremacist attacks in American history did not violate any federal laws. (And people say objective journalism is dead. When was there ever objective journalism? Certainly not when white men were the only demographic allowed in the field.) The DOJ’s report, however, acknowledged who the true villains were during the massacre, and that the vicious attack on Black residents by the white mob “was so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence.”
“The Tulsa race massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings, and locked the survivors in internment camps.”
“Until this day, the justice department has not spoken publicly about this race massacre or officially accounted for the horrific events that transpired in Tulsa,” the 126-page report was conducted by a team of lawyers and investigators from the Emmett Till Cold Case Unit of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division went on to say. “This report breaks that silence by rigorous examination and a full accounting of one of the darkest episodes of our nation’s past. This report lays bare new information and shows that the massacre was the result not of uncontrolled mob violence, but of a coordinated, military-style attack on Greenwood.”
Investigators for the review “spoke with survivors and with descendants of survivors, examined firsthand accounts of the massacre given by individuals who are now deceased, studied primary source materials, spoke to scholars of the massacre and reviewed legal pleadings, books, and scholarly articles relating to the massacre,” the report says. And yet, the living survivors of Tulsa and their descendants have repeatedly been denied reparations for all that they suffered and lost by the state of Oklahoma. They wanted long-overdue restitution, and all they got was a lousy review of what we already knew about the event.
Clarke noted in the review that “there is no living perpetrator for the justice department to prosecute.” So, basically, no reparations, no justice, only a century-late document confirming that what happened actually happened.
But that’s America for ya.
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Mississippi Valley State University, an HBCU, is currently catching hell on social media for accepting an invite for its marching band, the Mean Green Marching Machine, to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration and launching a GoFundMe campaign to pay for the trip.
Trump’s inauguration will take place on Jan. 20, 2025, the same date that the nation will observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It turns out a lot of people, especially Black people, don’t think it’s appropriate for the marching band of a historically Black college to perform for the president who, in 2020, exclusively targetted predominately Black and Latino voting precincts in his baseless and factless election fraud propaganda campaign — especially on the holiday honoring the civil rights icon who famously fought for Black people’s right to vote.
Unfortunately, the administrators at MVSU didn’t get the memo.
Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) is catching side-eyes after accepting an invitation to march in Trump’s upcoming inaugural parade on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 20, 2025. https://t.co/q7U3oN67lt pic.twitter.com/7wpKOkV1DV
— Bossip (@Bossip) December 30, 2024
From Revolt:
“This historic invitation highlights the band’s legacy of excellence and cultural significance, showcasing the university and Mississippi’s rich heritage globally. This invitation continues MVSU’s tradition of groundbreaking national performances. In 1965, the band became the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) ensemble to march in the Tournament of Roses Parade. They returned to Pasadena in 1968 and performed in President Richard Nixon’s inaugural parade on Jan. 20, 1969. These milestones reflect the band’s enduring legacy as cultural ambassadors for Mississippi and the HBCU community.”
Dr. Jerryl Briggs, MVSU president, noted that, “This is not just a moment of pride for our university but for the entire state of Mississippi. It is an opportunity to showcase our legacy, celebrate our culture, and invest in the future leaders of our community.”
Yeah — it’s arguable that all the invitation actually “highlights” is the president-elect’s willingness to continue pandering to Black people after promising to fight racism against white people while denying the very existence of systemic racism against Black people. Trump spearheaded the propaganda-reliant attack on critical race theory, issued an executive order banning diversity training in the workplace, and promised to end all DEI programs across America. He advocated for the military to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters, and he called for the execution of the Central Park Five, whose exoneration and innocence he still refuses to acknowledge.
Perhaps the administrators at MVSU would do well to understand that Black excellence shouldn’t include taking a seat at everyone’s table, and marching for a white nationalist could easily be interpreted as sambo-esque tap-dancing with a little extra razzle-dazzle.
Needless to say, the fine folks on X are displeased. Check out some of the reactions below.
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President Joe Biden is on his way out of the White House, but before leaving office, the 46th president is keeping things in line with his administration’s moratorium on the federal death penalty by commuting the sentences of most inmates on federal death row. And because those death row inmates are disproportionately Black (38%) and Latino (15%), many view the move as a good look towards racial justice in a legal system where racial justice is scarce.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1871284742231822546
“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement announcing that he would commute sentences for 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row, according to thegrio. “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss.”
Biden, who vowed to abolish the death penalty during his 2020 presidential campaign, did not extend this slew of commutations to the violent white supremacists and terrorists who are currently on death row. Those excluded inmates include Dylan Roof, who was sentenced to death in 2017 after he massacred nine congregants at a historic Black church in South Carolina.
From thegrio:
Only three death row inmates did not receive commutations from the president: Dylan Roof, who fatally shot nine Black Americans inside Mother Emanual AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013; and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 Jewish Americans at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Yeah — no matter what side of the death penalty issue you stand on, we should all be able to agree that certain offenders simply are not worth fighting on behalf of.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning that Rev. Sharon Risher, the daughter of Ethel Lance and the cousin of Susie Jackson and Tywanza Sanders, all of whom were killed by Roof, disagreed that everyone isn’t worth saving and actually requested that Roof’s life be spared as well.
“I learned that my mother and my loved ones were gunned down by a white supremacist trying to start a race war. He is not an innocent man on death row, but he is a man. He has humanity, and I have been willing and worked hard to give forgiveness to [him],” Risher said. “I do not want him to die. To spend the rest of his life in prison? Yes. But not for him to die in the name of my family. We are urging you, President Biden. I hope you hear my words. I hope you get to hear the pain in my voice.”
Many people would say it’s fortunate Biden decided not to give Roof his life back despite Risher’s request. Black America would have been outraged, and rightfully so.
Meanwhile, advocates for abolishing the death penalty are celebrating the decision as a win for civil rights, especially for Black prison inmates who statistically receive harsher punishments than their white counterparts who commit the same crimes.
“By commuting these sentences, President Biden has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness,” said Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged the president to commute the sentences of federal death row inmates. (thegrio noted that Donald Trump ordered the executions of 13 death row inmates during the final weeks of his first administration.)
Jamilla Hodge, CEO of Equal Justice USA, said President Biden’s commutation strikes a “blow against racism and a system that has always targeted Black people.”
“This action, aligned with your more recent pardons, reaffirms our shared belief in the dignity and value of all human life and the possibility of redemption in everyone,” Hodge continued.
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Amber Rose outing herself as a Trump supporter was already a thing that was on no one’s 2024 Bingo card, but what’s just as surprising is that she has managed to become arguably more obnoxious since entering the MAGA world than her MAGA ex, Kanye West.
Recently, reporters for TMZ caught up with Rose at LAX, and, for whatever reason, one of them felt the need to ask her a question about an issue that has been trending in the world of politics as if the slut walker-turned-p****y-grabber enthusiast actually knows things. Rose was asked about the thoroughly debunked rumors spread by Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance about undocumented migrants from Haiti abducting and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. Predictably (although it wouldn’t have been so predictable a few short months ago), Rose defended the blatantly bigoted narrative, denied that the unfounded rumors are racist, and sprinkled in a little bigotry of her own regarding “Haitian culture.”
“That is not racist when something is true and people are saying it online,” Rose said. “It’s a known fact that in Haitian culture, some people do eat cats.”
First of all, much like Trump and Vance, Rose doesn’t seem to understand that “people are saying it online” is not a source of factual information. And even if it were true that it’s a “known fact” that Haitians eat cats, which it is not, that wouldn’t mean there is any legitimacy to a rumor that Haitian migrants were stealing cats that belonged to residents and eating them. It would be like if Black people were blamed for a rumor going around about chickens being stolen from farms and tossed into fryers because Black people are stereotyped as having a special affinity for fried chicken. (Incidentally, you can ask Vance all about that.)
Remeber when Rose took the stage at the Republican National Convention and said it was only due to media “lies” that Trump and his MAGA followers are called racist? Perhaps she knew she needed to take that stance preemptively because she knew she would eventually be joining them in the racist white nationalist swamp that the MAGAts constantly wade in.
The truth is that Vance and Trump targeted an entire ethnic group in a specific location in the U.S. with egregiously racist and xenophobic lies that have prompted dozens of bomb threats in Springfield and caused the Haitian community in and outside of Ohio to fear for their safety. Ohio officials, including the city planners in Springfield, the Springfield Police Department, the city’s Republican mayor and the state’s Republican governor have all said there is no evidence and there are no credible reports about residents having their pets stolen and eaten by Haitian migrants, and, what’s worse, they informed Vance and Trump of this before the former started spreading the rumor and the latter humiliated himself on the debate stage by repeating it.
Yet, Vance keeps doubling down on the claim regardless of how much demonstrable harm it has caused, and he justifies it by claiming he has received a multitude of firsthand accounts from residents who had their pets stolen. Meanwhile, the only resident his campaign has been able to offer up as evidence is a white woman who filed a police report claiming her cat was stolen by her Haitian neighbor only for her cat to turn up in her basement a few days later.
Anyway, the fine folks on X are currently dragging Rose by her nonexistent edges for essentially becoming a full-blown MAGA bigot. Check out the reactions below.
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Not that we needed confirmation that Tyre Nichols, the victim of arguably one of the most vicious police brutality attacks ever recorded, wasn’t a threat to the five Memphis police officers who allegedly beat him to death during a January 2023 stop, but one of the officers testified Monday that Nochols’ killing didn’t need to happen because, in fact, he “wasn’t a threat.”
According to the Associated Press, ex-officer Emmitt Martin III — who pleaded guilty last month to using excessive force and failing to intervene in the unlawful assault, as well as conspiracy to cover up his use of unlawful force — took the stand in the federal trial of his former co-workers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, all of whom have pleaded not guilty to charges accusing them of depriving Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering. The fifth former officer, Desmond Mills Jr., also took a plea deal in exchange for testimony against Bean, Haley and Smith.
From AP:
For the first time in the trial, jurors heard from one of the officers who beat Nichols. Martin said he and his former colleagues — members of the Scorpion Unit, a Memphis police team that looked for drugs, illegal guns and violent criminals — would justify the force they used against a person by exaggerating the person’s actions against them. The unit was disbanded shortly after Nichols’ death.
Martin said he saw Nichols speed up to beat a red light and then change lanes without signaling, leading Martin to follow Nichols with his police car lights on. Haley eventually stopped Nichols’ Nissan, pulled out his gun and snatched Nichols from his vehicle without telling Nichols why he was stopped.
Martin also had his gun out, and joined Haley in trying to restrain Nichols while yelling various conflicting commands, such as telling Nichols to give the officers his hands, turn on his stomach and put his hands behind his back.
Meanwhile, Nichols was passively resisting the officers in a non-aggressive manner — by pulling his hands away from the officers, who were trying to handcuff him without telling him why, Martin said.
Cops always seem to be surprised and offended when a citizen, especially a Black citizen, wants to know why they’re being arrested before they just surrender willingly. It’s almost as if a police officer’s ego just can’t take their authority being challenged even when the challenge is reasonable. Nichols wanted to know why he was being taken in during a routine traffic stop, and he was killed for it.
“He wasn’t a threat,” Martin testified. “He was helpless.”
According to the New York Times, Martin also admitted that he punched and kicked the 29-year-old during the altercation, and he lied about it, confident that his fellow officers would back him up.
“I knew they weren’t going to tell on me,” Martin said. “And I wasn’t going to tell on them.”
A lot of “back the blue” advocates might be surprised to learn how often the “blue wall of silence” is all that separates police officers from common criminals. Of course, the streets has its own no-snitch policy, but no one on those streets committing violent crimes has the backing of a police union and a “justice” system that they can almost always count on to give them the benefit of the doubt.
“These are criminal defendants, they just happen to be police officers,” Kami N. Chavis, a law professor at the College of William & Mary and director of the school’s criminal justice program, told the Times. “The fact that they are testifying against their fellow officers says nothing about the code of silence. It says the code of silence is so strong it took a criminal proceeding in order for these officers to finally tell the truth.”
Martin acknowledged to prosecutors that he was testifying in hopes of receiving a more lenient prison sentence, but he also claimed he was turning on his fellow officers “just get this off of me.”
“I can’t sit here and live with a lie — the truth needs to come out,” he said. “It was eating me up inside to live with a lie.”
But if this case had just been a drop in a sea of police brutality cases that get swept under the rug regularly, would he still have been so guilt-ridden? Would he have offered up this mea culpa if he wasn’t facing any prison time at all?
All five ex-officers have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, and all of them pleaded not guilty, including Martin. AP noted that Martin and Mills are expected to change their pleas. A court date for their state trial has not yet been scheduled.
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Time stops for no one, and it’s already been a year since the infamous Montgomery Riverfront Brawl that featured out of pocket white people getting their proper comeuppance. What would be Black Twitter, before Phony Stark ruined it, is celebrating the day by reminiscing on the hilarious memes the incident spawned.
In case you need a quick history lesson, on August 5, 2023, a group of white boaters put hands on a Black riverboat co-captain on the Montgomery riverfront after inquiring why they weren’t moving when his boat was scheduled to dock. What ensued was retaliation that included a co-worker swimming to help (he was dubbed “Black Aquaman”), numerous work peers and civilians uniting like The Avengers to have his back and various people who overall needed to mind their business catching fades.
Also in the mix was a hat being tossed to the heavens as a signal that the time for discuss was over and folding chairs being weaponized. The resulting memes and play by play had social media in a chokehold for days after. It was a cultural flashpoint—the theme of race relations weaved throughout thanks to this nation’s history of people of color having to grin and bear disrespect and white privilege, but not on THAT day. Even Rupert Murdoch’s own The Washington Post has recently noted that the day has become an unofficial holiday.
Fortunately, there were no serious injuries. Although, the woman who got cracked by a folding chair may disagree. But, she reportedly refused to press charges. Respect.
And as far as the legal ramifications, while various people in the boat that initiated the ruckus pleaded guilty and paid out various fines, Dameion Pickett, the co-captain of the Harriott II, who was assaulted, had the charges against him dropped.
So on the anniversary of the glorious day, let us reminisce with current and past reactions in the gallery.
1. Take heed.
2. Perfect.
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Source: Sangamon County PD / Sangamon County
It appears that the violent death of Sonya Massey at the hands of former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson was preventable. Well, we already knew that just by looking at the police bodycam footage that clearly shows the shooting was unnecessary, but it’s also arguable that Massey might still be alive if police agencies were more discerning in regards to who they hire.
According to IPM News, military records obtained from one of Grayson’s previous employers show that he was discharged from the military in 2016 for what was labeled as “Misconduct (Serious Offense).” The record doesn’t go into any further detail regarding why Grayson, who was stationed at Fort Riley Army installation in Kansas, was discharged, but that doesn’t make the glaring red flag any less bright.
Actually, maybe that isn’t fair. After all, we don’t know why he was discharged, right? Then again, former Air Force prosecutor Andrew Ghiotto told IPM News that a “serious” dischargeable offense is typically “an offense equivalent to something that would have led to at least a year of incarceration for a civilian.” Should someone be able to become a police officer if they have a crime on their record that would have landed them in prison? If so, not only did Grayson become an officer of the law despite the discharge on his record, but he did so six separate times with six separate police agencies.
In fact, not only did Grayson—who is currently being held without bail on multiple charges including three counts of first-degree murder—bounce around from one agency to the next half a dozen times, but he lasted at most of them for less than a year.
From SCRIPPS News:
The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board shows Grayson was hired part-time on Aug. 11, 2020, by the Pawnee Police Department. He also was hired part-time on Feb. 4, 2021, by the Kincaid Police Department and on May 20, 2021, by the Virden Police Department.
Two months later, he was hired full-time by the Auburn Police Department and remained there until May 1, 2022, when he was hired full-time by the Logan County Sheriff’s Office. Grayson left Logan County on April 28, 2023, and was hired full-time on May 1, 2023, by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office.
So, five different agencies employed Grayson for less than a year, then, during his time at the sixth agency, he shot and killed a Black woman he had no discernable reason to shoot and kill.
Again, maybe Massey would still be alive if the bar wasn’t so low in regard to who can carry a gun and badge.
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The state of California has set aside $12 million in reparations funds for its Black residents as restitution for the history of anti-Black oppression that has plagued Black people for the overwhelming majority of our existence in America.
The $12 million included in California’s $300 billion budget is far less than what activists wanted, but it’s also far more than the amount the MAGA world wants to see gifted to Black people anywhere in the country, which is zero.
“Obviously, it’s not enough, but this is the first time ever that reparations for Black people will be a line item in a state budget,” said Chris Lodgson, a reparations activist who lobbied lawmakers to make it all happen, according to the Washington Post.
California’s reparations task force, which was established by the state legislature, actually recommended billions in reparations funding, including $1.2 million in payments for Black Californians over 50 who have lived in the states their whole lives. While the state only ended up approving a fraction of the amount proposed, proponents of the initiative say it’s fortunate even the $12 million total was approved considering the state’s current financial situation, which includes a nearly $50 billion budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year.
“In this tough economic climate, for us to find this money for reparations sends a signal not only to the state but to the nation that California is committed to addressing the harms that are the result of slavery in this country,” said state Sen. Steven Bradford (D).
But it’s not quite safe for state Democrats to call the reparations approval a win as they still have to contend with salty white conservative activists who will certainly fight them tooth and nail before they allow a single Black Californian to receive a check that non-Black Californians don’t also have access to.
From the Post:
Recently, Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group, filed a lawsuit to stop the country’s first government-funded reparations program in Evanston, Ill., which had already paid nearly $5 million to 193 of the town’s Black residents. And the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently dismissed a lawsuit by survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre seeking reparations.
“In the wake of the Tulsa decision and the Evanston lawsuit, folks have been asking: ‘Is the reparations movement really going anywhere?’” said Trevor Smith, executive director of the BLIS Collective, a nonprofit focused on restitution for Black and Native Americans. “So the fact that California continues to lead the way is really important.”
The state’s reparations effort is still facing resistance from state Republicans and some Latino and Asian lawmakers, who have argued that it’s unfair to make current residents, a majority of whom are people of color, pay for the sins of the state’s White founders.
“Most every Californian, regardless of race or background, comes from a lineage involving immense pain and struggle,” Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez (R) said in a statement. “Singling out just one demographic is extremely problematic and likely unconstitutional. The problems of the past cannot be paid for by the people of today.”
Yeah—it might be true that Black people don’t have a global monopoly on historic oppression, but we’re the only people in America who endured roughly two and a half centuries of slavery followed by another century of legally-sanctioned second-class citizenship.
So, there’s that.
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It should surprise absolutely no one that conservative commentator Matt Walsh—the guy who defends white nationalism, spreads racist and oversimplified propaganda about Black families, erroneously believes white men aren’t allowed to build airports anymore, and cries about anti-white racism in historically overwhelmingly white Hollywood—is really upset that white people aren’t allowed to use the n-word.
According to CLTV, the Daily Wire host was referring to an incident in which a white pizza delivery guy was caught on a Ring camera using the n-word when he launched into a white-tearsy rant about how white people should be able to use the word all they want because Black people use it amongst each other—and age-old argument made by salty Caucasians who refuse to just admit they want to use the slur because they’re racist. (But, whatever, maybe Walsh isn’t really racist and it’s just a coincidence that the guy who believes mermaids couldn’t possibly be Black because of—*checks notes*—science is also the guy who wants white people to be free at last to use the n-word whenever they please.)
“The claim, I guess, is that this Pizza Hut delivery guy just casually uses the n-word with customers as a greeting because that’s what it would be. Like, if he actually said it there, then that’s how—he didn’t even mean it as an insult,” Walsh said. “He just—this is apparently just what he—this is his way of saying hello.”
Daily Wire host Matt Walsh has outed himself as a racist on quite a few occasions. Just last week, Walsh made the bizarre claim that white men aren’t allowed to build airports anymore. And now he’s expressing frustration over Black people being able to use the n-word, but white people can’t. Someone actually pays the guy to talk about unimportant things. This time, it’s about an alleged white pizza delivery guy who said the n-word, and I suppose he saw the ring video footage online and determined that it was a hoax. However, according to Walsh, a father of six, white people should be able to use the offensive word if Black people do. Walsh feels that Black people are oppressing whites. Stop laughing. That’s how he rolls.
“The claim, I guess, is that this Pizza Hut delivery guy just casually uses the n-word with customers as a greeting because that’s what it would be. Like, if he actually said it there, then that’s how—he didn’t even mean it as an insult,” Walsh said, according to Media Matters. “He just—this is apparently just what he—this is his way of saying hello.”
“And, if that was true, it would mean that, at worst, he’s guilty of using the n-word the same way that many Black people use it,” he continued. “And this is why we have to be careful here. It’s important to point out that the claim is a lie. Even if it’s difficult to hear precisely what word or phrase he uses at the end of the clip—he obviously didn’t say the n-word—but even as we call out this hoax for what it is, we should make sure that we aren’t tacitly supporting the premise that if the delivery driver had said that word in that context, he would be guilty of some great moral crime.”
Walsh can’t even decide whether he wants to defend the delivery man’s use of the n-word, or deny that he used it all together, but, really, it doesn’t matter, because contrary to what closeted racists like Walsh who are just itching to say the word would have us believe—there’s actually nothing stopping white people from using the n-word.
Sure, a white man can catch a Twisted Tea can to the face for using the word around the wrong person, but there is also a myriad of reasons one might catch hands for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Sure, a white person can lose their job for using the slur, but, also, people of all colors can lose their jobs for using any slur if said job deems it to be inappropriate behavior, which most public and private sector jobs do.
In fact, Walsh even acknowledged the fact that white people aren’t obligated to refrain from using the word, which might lead one to wonder what exactly it is that this comically fragile white man is even complaining about.
“But, you know, no white person actually has any moral obligation to observe the insane, totally indefensible, ridiculous rule that decrees that this word is acceptable to be used in any and every context by one race but in no context at all by another race,” he said. “I mean, the idea that the pigmentation of your skin should determine whether you’re allowed to utter certain syllables in a particular combination is totally absurd.”
Somebody should remind Walh that America was built, in part, on the idea that “the pigmentation of your skin should determine whether” a person is even fully human, let alone allowed to say whatever they want. And white people’s oppressive use of the n-word is a part of that history, as is our reclaiming of it.
“N*gga”—when coming out of a Black person’s mouth—carries various connotations that range from the endearing “my n*gga” to the significantly less endearing “b***h-ass n*gga,” but, however we use it, there’s no implied racism. The point is, there’s cultural context at play here that most white people wouldn’t understand and they would do well to simply respect the history involved and keep the word out of their mouths.
Or whatever, they can just be like Matt Walsh and cry about it because they don’t have the critical thinking capacity to think past: “But…but *sniff* if they can say it, why can’t I?”
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Source: Worden Butler, Alexis Hartnett (J. Reuben Long Detention Center) / J. Reuben Long Detention Center)
It is almost 2024, and not only is racism still a persistent problem in America, but some racists have failed to come up with new ways to be racist. There’s just no other way to explain why a Black couple in South Carolina found a cross burning next to their house in the 21st century.
According to WMBF News, Shawn and Monica Williams, a retired couple, moved years ago into the Grand Strand in Conway, South Carolina. It was a place for them to live a peaceful life until Thanksgiving weekend when they walked outside to find the Ku Klux Klan’s favorite symbol of anti-Black terrorism, a burning cross, facing their home.
From WMBF:
The couple moved to Conway, settling into the perfect retirement home, but said their neighbors have made the last two years a living nightmare.
“He’s blatant with the ‘N-word,’” Monica said. “He chased off our surveyors. He’s chased off people from the water and sewer department.”
The couple even installed a fence, hoping to find peace, but it didn’t work. The cross burning was the final straw, so they called Horry County police.
Officers arrested their neighbors, 28-year-old Worden Butler and 27-year-old Alexis Hartnett, and charged them with second-degree harassment.
Police body camera footage reportedly caught Hartnett shouting racial slurs at the older Black couple, and a police report states that Butler—who already had at least five arrests for assault and disorderly conduct on his record—posted the couple’s address on Facebook, saying he was “going to make them pay.” (Presumably, for existing while Black.)
But the couple of apparent white supremacists with the throwback method for intimidating Black people was “out the next day” after their arrest, according to Monica.
“So now, what are we to do? Live next to a cross-burning racist who’s threatened to cause us bodily harm,” she said. “We feel that not enough laws are in place to deal with this, and there needs to be some accountability.”
South Carolina is one of two states that doesn’t have a hate crime law. (The other is Wyoming, in case anyone needed help compiling a list of states Black people should not reside in.) WMBF noted that “in the past three years, a hate crime bill has made it through the South Carolina State House but stalled on the Senate floor.” (We’ll leave it up to you to guess which political party is the holdout.) This has left it up to the NAACP to launch an investigation into the cross-burning with the hopes that it lights a fire, so to speak, under law enforcement.
“In these days and times, we don’t expect things like that to happen; it’s really appalling; the Emanuel Nine should have set the precedent for a hate crime law,” said Marvin Neal, 3rd vice president of the South Carolina State Conference NAACP. “We thought we were on the road in that direction when that happened, but here we are again.”
Neal was referring to the 2015 killing of nine Black people in a church in Charleston by white supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof. It was a senseless crime so vile and evil that it’s unfathomable that it didn’t prompt a statewide hate crime law to protect Black people from Klan-ish terrorists like the ones currently threatening the safety and well-being of Shawn and Monica Williams, and other Black people who just want to exist in peace.