Monday, May 31, 2021

Yeah, I know. Anyway, hope you had a pleasant Memorial Day and didn’t make it a nightmare for someone who had to work. Okay, then.

Apparently jealous of all the attention other Republican-run states are getting for punishing disloyal voters by making actual voting tougher, the Texas legislature tried to pass a bill this weekend to do just that. In fact, one of the portions of the bill would tighten and more restrict the hours allowed for counting votes, and that’s just funny. In a nutshell, it was as grossly unnecessary as what was passed in Georgia or Florida and probably worded just as bad, considering Republicans refused basic questions about it like “what’s in this bill, anyway.”

After spending Saturday fighting over Senate Bill 7, it passed yesterday morning and went to the House. Again, the two parties fussed and fought over it all day. However, passing was considered an inevitability because of the Republican control of the House. However, the Democrats pulled a slick one and walked out of the room, robbing the Republicans of a quorum and killing the bill.

In simple terms, the parliamentary procedure rules that run most of the U.S. various legislative bodies, state and national, demand a certain number of members on the floor. Usually, but not always, it has to be a certain number from both parties, but that isn’t the case in Texas. For those that are curious, this is considered a perfectly allowable if contentious action under the rules, so no actual laws were broken. Anyhow, the House minority leader sent all members a text around 10:35 p.m. to leave the building and since the legislative session closed at midnight, the move effectively killed the bill.

This pissed of 2024 GOP candidate for president Greg Abbott (who also is the governor of Texas in his spare time) to no end, of course, and ranting and raving about “election integrity,” he promised a special session because the Lone Star State doesn’t have other things to concern themselves with right now. This is coming off a 2020 election in which Trump won the state by over 600,000 votes and was considered “smooth and secure” by election officials, all of whom were Republicans. Even then-Gov. Greg Abbott praised the way the state carried out its constitutional duty, admitting in March that he was unaware of any voter fraud.

In his capacity as governor, Abbott is vowing to veto a line item in an upcoming financial bill that would essentially eliminate pay for the Texas legislative branch. Apparently, he thinks that doesn’t make him look like a barely in-control authoritarian dickweed, but that’s what Republican voters want these days. There’s also no set schedule for a special session to address this or whether the bill will go through changes to make it more palatable, but time will tell. It always does.

Moving on, as fitting for Memorial Day, the nation recognized the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. It’s also known as the Black Wall Street Massacre, the Greenwood Massacre, and the Tulsa Pogrom among other things. President Joe Biden issued a proclamation calling on Our Fellow Americans to remember the events of May 31, 1921, when white Okies rioted and basically destroyed the Black area of Tusla called Greenwood, a focal point of African American industry and financial wealth, thus “Black Wall Street.”

Thirty-nine deaths are officially recognized, but some counts go up to 300 mostly Black deaths. Officials at the time didn’t really put much effort into counting Black deaths. Over 6,000 Black people were arrested and interred for days without trial. For those who value property over people, the damage caused over $1.5 million damage to business and around $75,000 in personal property. That’s about $32.6 million when adjusted for inflation.

One aspect of the anniversary is how many people, Black and White, are owning up to how recently they’ve heard about this. At the time, the effect on the Black community across America was devastating and far-reaching. When combined with Jim Crow laws in the South and redlining laws in the rest of the country, it contributed to the horror African Americans had to endure during most of the 20th century before the Civil Rights Act. The reason is most Tulsans decided to keep mum about the riot, white and black, for reasons I should think are obvious. A bipartisan group set up by the Oklahoma legislature found that the city of Tulsa conspired with the White rioters both to attack their Black neighbors and sit on the story as much as possible.

The commission started in 1996 and released its findings in 2001. Again, most people have never heard of this event in American history, even though it’s still living history, nor do they fully appreciate the implications of not just the death and destruction, but also the official state and local government’s attempts to pretend it never happened at all. I remember hearing an NPR story on it not long after the findings were released. I was in the grocery store parking lot in Athens about to do some shopping but wound up listening to the whole story first. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. This is something all Americans should know and understand because it goes a long, long way in helping to explain why things are so tense right now.

Something to think about on this Memorial Day. Something to not forget about when tomorrow comes. And remember, learning and acknowledging isn’t assigning blame or guilt. If you feel guilty, that says more about you than anything else.