Doing his best to channel George Wallace, Governor Doug Ducey is banning Critical Race Theory in schools. Citing Arizona’s leadership in education, while also declaring that he is “protecting Arizonans against divisive and regressive lessons”. Let’s not forget that in 1987, Arizona’s own Governor Evan Mecham rescinded the MLK holiday and decided to offer up a “Civil Rights Day” instead, to be “celebrated” on a Sunday. This cost the state a Super Bowl and around $200 million in revenue. This resulted in our state being the last in the nation to formally accept the MLK holiday. If you just found out about this bit of trivia by reading this blog, then you also just found out WHY teaching Critical Race Theory is important.
segregation
One More Senate Race: Mississippi Goddam (Updated)
There is one senate race yet to be decided this Tuesday, in a run-off election in Mississippi.
As singer Nina Simone sang, Mississippi Goddam.
Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant in March to fill retiring GOP Sen. Thad Cochran’s seat, is a virtual cartoon character villain of the “Old South” rather than the New South image that Old Dixie would like to portray to the rest of the world.
On Nov. 11, a video appeared on social media showing Hyde-Smith saying that if she were invited by one of her supporters to a “public hanging,” she would be in “the front row” (just like the girl above).
Perhaps Senator Hyde-Smith should visit the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama to get a better moral sense of the racial terrorism of hangings and lynchings of 4400 African-American men, women, and children who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950.
On Nov. 15, another video emerged of Hyde-Smith telling a group of people that “there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So, I think that’s a great idea.”
What she means, of course, is African-Americans who overwhelmingly vote Democratic — when they are allowed to vote and their vote is not suppressed by white politicians like Senator Hyde-Smith.
On November 20, a Facebook post surfaced in which Hyde-Smith is seen posing for a photo wearing a Confederate soldier’s hat and holding a rifle. She wrote in her Facebook post, “I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi. This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!”