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DISMANTLING DEMOCRACY
Tennessee Republicans Put Bigotry Front and Center
The Black man is a threat; the brown man is less of a threat; the woman is irrelevant
Last week the Republican-led majority in the Tennessee House of Representatives did something they haven't done but twice since the Civil War. They expelled two members — both Democrats, both POC.
Their excuse for throwing democracy out the window was cited as a breach of decorum, one so heinous in their eyes that they equated it to the insurrection on January 6. The activity that inspired such a radical response was a non-violent protest aimed at gun safety — the Democrats' response to a recent school shooting in Nashville that claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students, among others.
The horror of the peaceful protest so enraged House Republicans that they voted to expel three of their members: Reps. Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson.
For reasons no one has explained, only Rep. Johnson was not expelled. Similarly baffling is the ongoing discussion about reinstating just one of the expelled representatives: Justin Jones.
Since there appears to be no logic involved in either the original decision to expel or the potential decision to…
