Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson (D) gave viewers of Fox News’ sister network a lesson in the dangers of white supremacy after his state wiped out its only majority-Black congressional district with the hope of retaining Republican control of the U.S. House.
In a Friday interview on Live Now from Fox, host Christina Evans pointed out that state Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) had recently removed Pearson and every other Democrat from their committee assignments.
“We have to be very clear that Republican Speaker Cameron Sexton has been operating in the vein and in the spirit of the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in the state of Tennessee in Pulaski,” Pearson told Evans. “The reality is this decision is a perpetuation of the removal and the reduction and the dilution of Black political power and our ability to speak on issues that impact our community.”
“Taking away our ability to serve on committees for the remainder of this year, particularly some committees that are still going to be open throughout the remainder of the year, is really showing everybody the authoritarianism and the spirit of which the Republican Party is operating in our state that does not include holding voice or space for the minority party or holding voice or space for a democracy,” he pointed out.
Pearson said he expected Republicans in Tennessee to draw new maps as soon as the Supreme Court struck down the use of race as a factor in drawing districts.
“I mean, you can never doubt the power of white supremacy to make decisions very quickly when it is to create more power for themselves, the president of the United States,” he explained. “[Republican Senator] Marsha Blackburn, who’s running for governor of the state of Tennessee, said this is something that needed to happen.”
“They are doing everything that they can to steal an election, including breaking up majority black districts, mid-decade, which is completely outside of the norm,” he continued. “And it was illegal in our state to do until this special session. When they changed the law to allow for them to do what otherwise would be illegal, which is changing our districts in between the census, there was a reason that those laws were put into place so that politics would not decide on how districts will be reapportioned, and instead that’s exactly what’s happening.”
The lawmaker accused Chief Justice John Roberts’ court of “gutting the most important piece of legislation of the 20th century, the Voting Rights Act, in this democracy against white supremacy and authoritarian actions of the 1950s, 1940s that saw black people in particular being lynched, being shot, being beaten, having their jobs taken away just for registering to vote and trying to participate in this democracy.”
“And now what we are seeing is a retrenchment that is going to lead to several horrible ramifications in our communities, but particularly in the South,” he added.
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