No Justins, No Peace
The Tennessee debacle is a clarion call to social reform and intelligent civil disobedience.
by Rich Herschlag
Amidst the bedlam that was the live broadcast from the Tennessee House of the expulsion of two young Black elected legislators I tried to find both entertainment and reassurance. These came first from the army of youth and their parents—Black, white, Christian, Jewish, other, who knows—surrounding the Capitol in Nashville and no longer fitting neatly into any pseudo-reasonable narrative dished out by the paid henchmen of the NRA. The chickens have come home to roost, boys, and here on the eve of the Resurrection in the state that took the life of Dr. King almost exactly 55 years ago they don’t buy your marketing of Jesus as an AR-15-slinging aging frat boy looking to hunt him some trans folks.
Entertainment and reassurance came also from the emergence of both Justin Jones and Justin Pearson onto the national scene. The coming forth of great Black leaders and orators in America is usually born of duress (see and hear Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, John Lewis, Barrack Obama), and this time around in that sense is probably no different. Justin Pearson, minutes before the travesty of a legislative vote that would at worst represent a speed bump in his young career of serving justice, channeled several of the above figures and put forth more spirit in a single impassioned sentence than the likes of Republican Speaker Cameron Sexton could if he spent the summer in Bible school and walking in Galilee.
Justin and Justin are Cameron’s worst nightmare—living proof that in Gen-Z there is an endless, up and coming supply of heart, soul, and grassroots organization destined to obliterate the house of cards and violence that is the intended legacy of Cameron and his ilk. When I look at the sad specimens of Homo sapiens these aging Boomers and Gen-Xers represent I am momentarily ashamed to be associated with their birthdates and tend to think our greatest contribution to the American future might be to die sooner. But then I consider the inevitable forthcoming clash of righteousness versus hypocrisy now in just its opening scenes and I want to eat my legumes and green leafy vegetables and hang around for as long as humanly possible.
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As the Merlot fades and my rational brain takes over once again I ask myself what could possibly motivate even the obviously racist members of the Tennessee House to commit so public, egregious, and fundamentally immoral an act as they just have. I believe that on some level—maybe the most transparent level—what they want is a race riot. A race riot to project their unholy rage upon people they wish to draw down to their level and somehow prove the point they have so clumsily, ignorantly, and outrageously failed to make. At the beginning of the end of their unholy reign and facing bright lights that will inevitably relegate them to the garbage bin of American history, these desperate acts are all they’ve got.
Meanwhile, as the slaughter of schoolchildren with high-powered, high-tech weapons of mass destruction proceeds, as a national consensus on this issue builds however painstakingly slow, as the crimes of disgraced former President Trump are distilled from inflamed but credible accusations to mundane charges issued dryly and routinely in courts of law, as another consensus on reproductive rights also builds and shows its political teeth in battleground states like Wisconsin, the far right, alt-right, and hypocritical right—all overlapping like a grade school level Venn diagram—are seeking and will continue to seek increasingly less ostensibly justifiable and no longer even thinly veiled public, legislative acts of racism, misogyny, and anti-free speech in the hopes of fomenting violent division that masks their train wreck of an attempt to govern. In that train wreck lies chaos so thorough and potential destruction of democracy so complete that in the resulting confusion they represent, at least to flustered American citizens, some sort of stable barge in rough waters. This is the politics of desperation, which though still a bit murky grows clearer every day.
The Tennessee debacle is a clarion call to social reform and intelligent civil disobedience. If there are two sides to this issue, the other side is so morally bankrupt the risk for those of us on the good side is to lose self-discipline. We implore Tennesseans and Americans in general to rise to this occasion thoughtfully and nonviolently. Don't take the bait. Take the high road. Hold a national mirror up to fear, hatred, and bigotry. Do not let the opportunity pass. In a state that prides itself on whiskey this one is 200 proof. No Justins, no peace.
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Very well-written dissection of what just happened in Tennessee, Rich. Those ousted representatives were inadvertently made into superstars by the repugnican members of the Tennessee House. Boy, are they ever humiliated by this rash action and I hope they have been totally shamed by the quick response to their misguided attempt to silence debate on the gun issue. And, maybe, these overtly racist lawmakers do want a race war, but the very diverse members of Gen Z will not tolerate it. It's us aging Baby Boomers and maybe those in Gen X who have fallen for this bullshit from the alt-right or far right. This will be their moment and I also hope that I - and you - can live long enough to see the coming change after the old guard is replaced or dies out - finally!
I've heard "I wanted to start a race war" from multiple white supremacists (for ex. Dylann Roof). The idea is to goad non-white people into fighting back so white supremacists have an excuse to slaughter them. Ghandi and MLK were very smart to conduct non-violent protests to avoid providing that excuse. Something I noticed about the GOP supermajority in TN is that it wasn't enough for them to be able to block any bill proposed by Democrats. They would also cut off the microphones of Democrats during debates. I expect they were enraged by the simple, effective workaround of using a bullhorn. The two Justins are both great public speakers, so it would be a temptation for less gifted politicians to try and silence them. Bravo to the TN Three for standing up their grieving constituents.