On The Vine: What encroachments on democracy?
I’ll be honest with you, even though it seemed all but certain that The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act would fail in the hands of what’s meant to be our stalwarts of democracy, I’ve yet to wrap my head around the Senate’s blockage of it.
I’m not exceptionally naive, I recognize the fire fueling it’s opposition, whether those opposed are willing to or not, but now that we’re faced with a world in which the protections and benefits it would have created — national automatic voter registration, allowed all voters to cast ballots by mail and weakened voter ID laws — what future are we entering?
What restrictions and holds and bars will come for our right to vote?
What encroachments on our republic? On democracy?
What I am sure of, is Jan. 6 doesn’t happen if not for the astounding work and resolve of predominately Black women in the south getting people out to vote, particularly those who may not have otherwise done so for this reason or the next.
It was the one bright spot in a demonstration of ye olde racism; an attempt to steal what was rightfully gained.
Are they taking that from us now too?
Around the block
Charles McGee, Tuskegee Airman who ran Kansas City’s downtown airport, dies at 102
Charles E. McGee was one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. He flew 409 combat missions, “more combat missions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam than any other Air Force pilot,” according to the National World War II Museum. After retiring he called Kansas City home.
McGee died Jan. 16. He was 102.
The Star’s Luke Nozicka writes:
Last year, McGee stood alongside Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, members of the Heart of America chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen and other officials as the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport’s general aviation terminal was renamed after McGee. Lucas called McGee a “wonderful leader” for Kansas City and the U.S., and said as a child, he watched all of what McGee accomplished.
“It is rare that we get to stand in front of heroes, particularly multiple heroes,” Lucas said at the ceremony, later adding: “In a time where ... there’s so much challenge in our country, I think about someone like you, Gen. McGee, and I think about how you can truly bring so many together ... with a commitment to service, with a dedication to our community and our country.”
As of last year, U.S. officials said McGee was one of only nine surviving Tuskegee Airmen.
After news of McGee’s death Sunday, condolences poured in from across the country. NASA called McGee a “trailblazer.” Vice President Kamala Harris recalled how she thanked McGee for his service just last month, on his 102nd birthday. In a Facebook post, Kansas City’s downtown airport described McGee as “genuine and humble.”
Check this out too...
Kansas Citian went from ex-con to entrepreneur. Her business? Kids’ birthday parties
KU’s vice provost for diversity, equity resigns after plagiarizing MLK Day message
Former Kansas City security guard sues City Hall for alleged racial discrimination
Kevin Strickland sues Missouri prison healthcare provider for neglecting medical needs
Beyond the block
Voting bill collapses, Democrats unable to change filibuster
Lisa Mascaro writes for The Associated Press:
Voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital to protecting democracy collapsed late Wednesday when two senators refused to join their own party in changing Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster after a raw, emotional debate.
The outcome was a stinging defeat for President Joe Biden and his party, coming at the tumultuous close to his first year in office.
Despite a day of piercing debate and speeches that often carried echoes of an earlier era when the Senate filibuster was deployed by opponents of civil rights legislation, Democrats could not persuade holdout senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to change the Senate procedures on this one bill and allow a simple majority to advance it.
“I am profoundly disappointed,” Biden said in a statement after the vote.
Don’t pass on this...
Gary Chambers’ new pot-smoking campaign ad in Senate race goes viral with old tactics
Florida could shield whites from ‘discomfort’ of racist past
Doctors Debate Whether Trans Teens Need Therapy Before Hormones
For the culture
An Ode to Andre Leon Talley
Andre Leon Talley amazed me. I came to him late; to his glory, his extravagance, his elegant force. But I was captivated from the start, moved by his gospel.
His loss — our loss — is an insurmountable one. But others have better tributes to pay than I ever could...
Author Saeed Jones writes:
Elegantly assertive. Silk caftans and well-paired Uggs. Simultaneously overwhelming and charming. At ease in Milan but also Durham. Fierce fabulous decadent and BLACK as his grandmother in heaven.
It’s easy, I think, to dismiss ways of being as cultural contributions, but I believe that people are culture. How they live and move and myth-make and endure and drape and pose and want and want and want and observe and comment and declare. That’s culture. Andre Leon Talley’s sense of self was culture. And, I argue, it was culture at its best. One look at him and you wanted more for yourself. Another glance and you understood that “more” could look like anything as long as it was what you wanted for yourself.
More reading for the soul...
Be kind. Smile.
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