States With Racist Jim Crow Voter Suppression Laws
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I (and likely millions of other Americans) were surprised to learn from the racism sleuths among us that Georgia recently enacted a Jim Crow voter suppression law the likes of which America has never seen. In light of that disturbing revelation, I wondered if there were any other states with such laws and was even more surprised to discover that from sea to shining sea, America is riddled with Jim Crow laws. There are so many Jim Crow voter suppression laws in so many states that I don’t have time to list them all, so I’ll just highlight a few.
According to the New York Post, Chuck Schumer may have some ‘splainin’ to do:
the Empire State still makes it harder to vote than does the state [Georgia] that’s drawing the boycotts. New York offers eight fewer days of early voting and requires a valid excuse to vote absentee.
Yes, Georgia will now ask for a valid ID to vote absentee, but lets you out of the requirement if you attest that you don’t have one.
New York even has a ban similar to Georgia’s new prohibition on the distribution of food and drink in voting lines that President Joe Biden labeled “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” …
Those “mobile ballot drop-off” vans that Georgia just restricted? New York doesn’t allow them at all.
It’s not only New York that attempts to suppress the black vote by requiring an excuse to vote absentee. Delaware, Connecticut, and New Hampshire also require such excuses.
Georgia’s new law expands existing early voting requirements. The “new law … adds a mandatory weekend day for early voting, requiring two Saturdays of early voting. The old law required one.” To be truly fair, early voting should be expanded another few months. But Delaware hasn’t begun offering any early voting days. Those won’t start until next year. Maybe Delaware voters had to wait for vote-suppressor Joe Biden to leave the state before getting rid of that Jim Crow relic.
It’s weird that Biden and Schumer were elected year after year while remaining silent on their states’ voter suppression laws. I thought silence was violence.
Oh, but there’s still more voter suppression hiding in plain sight, like the fact that photo IDs are also required at polling places in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
Georgia’s law makes some changes to the number and location of ballot drop boxes—drop boxes that were added in 2020 because of the pandemic. If you’re alarmed by that, you won’t believe what else I learned. Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia provide no ballot drop boxes. Who knew New Hampshire has been suppressing the black vote?
We all know what needs to happen now. Every professional sports event scheduled in these states must be canceled.
After ruminating about and researching the prevalence of racist voter suppression laws, I began wondering what other forms of racist suppression I may not have noticed while traipsing about America draped in my white privilege. Well, those who oppose Jim Crow photo ID laws better be sitting down for this next bit of shocking news I discovered about America.
America has flying suppression laws, driving suppression laws, car rental/purchase suppression laws, welfare access suppression laws, alcohol purchase suppression laws, medical care access suppression laws, bank account access suppression laws, food stamps access suppression laws, house purchase and house rental suppression laws, apartment rental suppression laws, marriage suppression laws, pet adoption suppression laws, hotel/motel access suppression laws, cell phone purchase suppression laws, blood donation suppression laws, gun purchase suppression laws, and hunting/fishing license suppression laws.
Here are just a few of the racist countries that prohibit mail-in voting: Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden.
Here are a few of the racist countries that ban early voting: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and United Kingdom.
Here are a few of the racist countries that ban ballot collecting (i.e., proxy voting, “ballot harvesting”): Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungry, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Portugal, and Spain.
All the coolest countries are racist!
In my research, however, I came across some confusing information.
First, I read something by Hans von Spakovsky which threw an ideological monkey wrench into the “Georgia Is a Hotbed of Racism” narrative:
Georgia provides a free photo ID to anyone who doesn’t already have one. …
Section 25 of the bill doesn’t even require voters to provide a photocopy of their ID. Instead, the voter can simply write “the number of his or her Georgia driver’s license or identification card” on the application for the absentee ballot.
Moreover, if the voter doesn’t have such a Georgia ID card, she can “provide a copy of a form of identification listed” in another code section of Georgia law (§ 21-2-417(c)). And what does that code section say? That you can satisfy the ID requirement with a “copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of such elector.”
Now where do you think the Georgia legislature got that language? They got it from federal law, the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Section 303(b) of this law (codified at 52 U.S.C. § 21083) requires an individual who registered to vote by mail and who is voting for the first time in a federal election (whether in person or by mail) to instead provide “a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that show the name and address of the voter” if he doesn’t have a “current and valid photo identification.”
The language on voter IDs for absentee ballots in the new Georgia law is thus identical to the language in federal law, promulgated through the Help America Vote Act. And guess who voted to approve this federal law in 2002? Why, then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. In fact, the vote was 92 to 2, and included in the “yes” votes were Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Were they all imposing “Jim Crow” on American voters? I don’t seem to recall the Major League Baseball Players Association boycotting any of the states of these senators—or any of the other senators who voted in favor of the Help America Vote Act. Or boycotting their own stadiums, which require IDs to pick up will call tickets.
Then I read something even weirder than the U.S. Senate re-elections after re-elections after re-elections of racist vote-suppressors Biden and Schumer. I read that Missouri, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas rank in the top ten states for black voter turnout despite their voter suppression laws. Black voter turnout in North Carolina is virtually tied with that of New York and beats black turnout in California by a smidge.
A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research and published in 2019 found that voter ID requirements have virtually no effect on voter turnout:
For all the heated debates around strict voter ID laws, our analysis of their effects obtains mostly null results. First, the fears that strict ID requirements would disenfranchise disadvantaged populations have not materialized. Using the largest individual-level dataset ever assembled to study voter participation, we do not find any negative effect on overall turnout and registration rates or on any group defined by race, age, gender, or party affiliation.
Confusing? A bit, but oh, well, I’m with President Biden who once said, “We choose truth over facts.”
I did learn that one news report about the Georgia law was wrong, and this will be a huge relief to many. For those people of color and colorless people who regularly lose consciousness from thirst or starvation while waiting in line to vote, just pack up all your care and woe. Georgia will feed you.
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Drew Brees, the Mob, and the Poisonous Doctrine of Collective Guilt
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New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a committed Christian, and, before last week, deeply admired and liked by people of all colors and no color, committed an almost unforgivable sin. He said this in response to a specific question about athletes kneeling during the national anthem:
I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell you what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played, and when I look at the flag of the United States. I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corp, both risking their lives to protect our country and to try to make our country and this world a better place. Every time I stand with my hand over my heart, looking at that flag, and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about, and in many cases, it brings me to tears thinking about all that has been sacrificed, not just [by] those in the military, but … those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and everyone, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go, but I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better and that we are all part of the solution.” (emphasis added)
“Progressives” became apoplectic and splenetic. Judging from their attacks, one would think Brees had publicly celebrated Derek Chauvin.
Under withering attacks, Brees offered two apologies because the mob hated his first one. Then his wife, Brittany Brees, issued an apology in which she said,
Somehow we as white America … can feel good about not being racist, feel good about loving one another as God loves us. We can feel good about educating our children about the horrors of slavery and history. We can read books to our children about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X., Hank Aaron, Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman.. and feel like we are doing our part to raise our children to love, be unbiased and with no prejudice. To teach them about all of the African Americans that have fought for and risked their lives against racial injustice. Somehow as white Americans we feel like that checks the box of doing the right thing. Not until this week did Drew and I realize THAT THIS IS THE PROBLEM. To say “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag” .. I now understand was also saying I don’t understand what the problem really is, I don’t understand what you’re fighting for, and I’m not willing to hear you because of our preconceived notions of what that flag means to us. That’s the problem we are not listening, white America is not hearing. We’re not actively LOOKING for racial prejudice.
If saying “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag” also says “I don’t understand what the problem really is,” then does kneeling during the national anthem mean both “America is systemically racist” and “I don’t understand why you value the flag and national anthem. I don’t understand what you see that’s good in America. I’m not willing to hear you because of our view of America as pervasively evil and whites as oppressors”?
Unlike Brittany Brees, I can’t speak for all of white America. I don’t know what all of white America feels. But I do know that for a lot of white Americans, teaching our children about the horrors of slavery and lynchings, about Jim Crow laws, and about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Hank Aaron, Jesse Owens, and the Tuskegee Airmen is not about “feeling good.” Raising our children to love others, to hate bigotry, and to stand up for mistreated friends is not about “feeling good” or “checking boxes.” It’s not about virtue-signaling or pride. It’s about serving Christ. It’s about loving our neighbors as ourselves. It’s about truth.
“Progressives” argue that people who explicitly condemn police brutality and all forms of bigotry and who have never said or done anything racist are the problem if they don’t endorse kneeling during the national anthem. Just curious, does that principle of collective guilt apply to all egregious sin? Are people who explicitly oppose the sexual exploitation of women and children in pornography, strip clubs, prostitution, and sex trafficking, and who have never viewed porn, visited a strip club, hired a prostitute, or trafficked women and children a problem? Should they kneel during the national anthem as a protest against the many Americans who watch porn, leer at women in strip clubs, hire prostitutes, and/or traffic in women and children? Are our flag and national anthem now symbols of the poisonous systemic abuse of women and children that colleges and universities promote through courses that celebrate porn? Are Americans who explicitly oppose the sexual exploitation of women and children, who are pro-actively teaching their children about its evil, and who have never been complicit in it via using porn, visiting strip clubs, hiring prostitutes, or sex-trafficking, the problem if they are not “actively” looking for the sexual exploitation of women and children?
Former NFL player Shannon Sharpe said this about Drew Brees’s response to an interviewer’s question about the knee-taking of athletes:
[Drew] issued an apology … but it’s meaningless because the guys know he spoke his heart the very first time around. I don’t know what Drew’s going to do, but he probably should just go ahead and retire now. He will never be the same. Take it from a guy that has been a leader in the locker room for a number of years. What he said, they will never look at him the same because he spoke his heart. It wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it. He was defiant. I will NEVER [yes, Sharpe shouted that defiantly] respect the man.
BTW, Brees did not speak defiantly as Sharpe falsely claimed—making Sharpe, therefore, a slanderer. Don’t believe me? Well, watch it yourself and see if you think Brees was “defiant”:
Sharpe expresses the “progressive” view of “tolerance,” and this is why “progressivism” will destroy both freedom and the country. Brees saying that he disagrees with knee-taking during the national anthem while at the same time saying the flag represents the sacrifices made during the Civil Rights era and acknowledging that right now we have a lot of work yet to do renders him—in Sharpe’s repugnant view—unsuitable for employment or respect.
Brees’s teammate Malcolm Jenkins castigated him too saying,
Drew Brees, if you don’t understand how hurtful, how insensitive your comments are, you are part of the problem. To think that because your grandfathers served in this country and you have a great respect for the flag that everybody else should have the same ideals and thoughts that you do is ridiculous. And it shows that you don’t know history. Because when our grandfathers fought for this country and served and they came back, they didn’t come back to a hero’s welcome. They came back and got attacked for wearing their uniforms. They came back to people, to racism, to complete violence.”
Brees never said anything like “everybody else should have the same ideals and thoughts” that he does. Moreover, Brees is justified in valuing the service of his grandfathers, and he is justified in his respect and love for America—the country to which emigrants the world over seek entry. He’s justified in loving America for her founding—though imperfectly realized—principles. He’s justified in celebrating the incredible integration of peoples of diverse races, ethnicities, and religions in America. He’s justified in appreciating how far we’ve come since slavery and Jim Crow laws.
It is possible for whites both to value the sacrifice and service of their fathers and grandfathers and to feel contempt for the injustice of black fathers and grandfathers being ill-treated following their service and sacrifice.
Vietnam war veterans—both black and white—were spit on by liberals when they returned home. Do we hold liberals who, not only didn’t engage in such behavior but also condemn it, accountable for that injustice? Do we blame such ugly behavior committed by some liberals fifty years ago on all of America? Does the American flag and national anthem symbolize their repugnant acts?
Jenkins continued,
And then here we are in 2020, with the whole country on fire, everybody witnessing a black man dying—being murdered—at the hands of the police, just in cold blood for everybody to see. The whole country’s on fire, and the first thing that you do is criticize one’s peaceful protest that was years ago when we were trying to signal a sign for help and signal for our allies and our white brothers and sisters, the people we consider to be friends, to get involved? It was ignored. And here we are now with the world on fire and you still continue to first criticize how we peacefully protest because it doesn’t fit in what you do and your beliefs without ever acknowledging that the fact that a man was murdered at the hands of police in front of us all and that it’s been continuing for centuries, that the same brothers that you break the huddle down with before every single game, the same guys that you bleed with and go into battle with every single day go home to communities that have been decimated.
Brees didn’t “continue to first criticize.” He has not been continually criticizing the kneeling protests. He didn’t initiate discussion of the topic. Brees was asked by an interviewer what he would do if teammates kneeled during the national anthem.
And while Brees didn’t mention George Floyd, he did acknowledge the suffering of the black community. To remind Jenkins, this is what Brees said:
[I]t brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed, not just [by] those in the military, but … [by] those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and everyone, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go. … we can all do better and … we are all part of the solution.
What exactly did Jenkins mean when he said the kneeling protests were “ignored”? Likely he meant that there were many people who didn’t participate or support the protest. In other words, in Jenkins’ view, the only acceptable way to help decimated black communities is to protest the national anthem. But then isn’t Jenkins doing exactly what he accuses Brees of doing? Isn’t he demanding that everyone believe what he believes about the protests, the flag, and the national anthem?
Jenkins is ignoring that there are white people and black people trying to help decimated black communities. They’ve been trying for years, but they’re shouted down and called bigots for having different views than white and black liberals on how to solve the problems of racism and urban blight. Here are some of their ideas:
How should we address actual racism committed by racist individuals in police departments—most of which are controlled by liberals? Punish them and/or get rid of them. How do we do that? Revisit/reform “qualified immunity” and policies that conceal police misconduct and protect brutal cops.
How should we address crime in black communities? Work on transforming society by getting rid of no-fault divorce and using every resource available to promote true marriage and discourage out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Intact families with a mother and a father are the greatest protections against poverty and crime. And when crime is reduced in communities, businesses will move in.
How do we improve education? Offer impoverished families school choice and end teachers’ unions that promote destructive policies and protect lousy teachers. And stop teaching divisive and false ideas from organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s education arm Teaching Tolerance, or Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, or The 1619 Project that present imbalanced views of American history and teach children of color that because of white oppression, they have no hope of moving up in the world.
How do we help blacks improve their financial position? Deregulate businesses and reduce taxes in order to grow the economy, thereby providing jobs.
How do we help eradicate bigotry, bitterness, and hatred? We preach the gospel—the whole gospel.
If Jenkins is concerned about the decimation in his community, why attack Brees? Why not attack “progressives” who have run the cities in which those decimated communities subsist? Why not attack the racism profiteers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who make bank by fomenting racial division? Why not attack liberal leaders who deny school choice to poor black families? Why not attack teachers’ unions that protect lousy teachers in failing schools? Why not attack fatherlessness that results in criminality? Why not attack Black Lives Matter (BLM) that seeks to dismantle families, which are the single best hope for black children?
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.
Note that mothers and parents are mentioned but not fathers.
Are those principles and goals helpful to black children? Are they unifying? Are they good?
Jenkins was not done with his accusatory screed:
Drew, unfortunately, you’re somebody who doesn’t understand their privilege. You don’t understand the potential that you have to actually be an advocate for the people that you call brothers.
Will Jenkins stand behind whites who advocate for school choice, true marriage, and the end of teachers’ unions? Will Jenkins cheer whites who advocate against premarital sex and out-of-wedlock births? Will Jenkins cheer whites who advocate for the end of divisive, destructive diversity training and The 1619 Project that teach lies and foster division? Will Jenkins cheer for whites who advocate the ideas of Candace Owens, Thomas Sowell, Ben Carson, Bob Woodson and “1776 Unites” project? Or are whites expected to advocate for only ideas and policies that Jenkins, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nikole Hannah-Jones and her 1619 Project scam promulgate?
Liberals have had fifty years to solve the problems endemic to urban communities of color—including eight years with a black president whose presidency saw black unemployment and racial division surge. Is Jenkins willing to listen to the ideas of others on how to help, how to advocate, how to get involved? Is he willing to listen to diverse ideas on how to rebuild suffering communities? Or will he say to black conservatives what he said to Brees: “you should shut the f–k up.”
It’s ironic that progressives have controlled most major cities for decades and have been forcing Americans in government schools and the corporate world to endure years of “diversity training,” “sensitivity” sessions, and “social justice” indoctrination, and yet we just suffered through the worst race riots since 1968 when Boomers and their rotten ideas began corrupting academia.
Their rotten ideas have—as expected and predicted—produced rotten fruit that is poisoning the hearts and minds of Americans. Race relations had been improving slowly but surely until the Boomers’ ideas seeped from sullied towers in bastions of idiocy like Berkeley to countless colleges and universities and then into high schools. Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege Conferences, and Howard Zinn’s revisionist history of the United States turned young teens’ minds into burbling cauldrons of contempt for America and its founding principles—those very principles that had brought us so far from the days of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and red-lining. With an erroneous understanding of American history, young Americans falsely believe that America was and remains a wholly evil country that must be destroyed and rebuilt in the recriminatory image of “progressives.”
Former NFL coach and Christian Tony Dungy, who likes and respects Drew Brees, expressed disappointment with his initial comments. Dungy said that “we need unifying voices, not divisive voices.” Dungy’s comments were disappointing in that he didn’t address the divisiveness of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, or people like Al Sharpton. He didn’t address the divisiveness of the attacks on Drew Brees for saying—when asked—that he doesn’t agree with kneeling during the national anthem. But you see, Dungy wasn’t asked about any of that, just like Brees was not asked specifically about George Floyd.
Two apologies from Drew Brees and one long one from Mrs. Brees, all of which suggest they have joined BLM. These apologies bring to mind Winston Smith at the end of 1984. Sadly, it doesn’t take torture to get grown men (and women) to capitulate to a destructive ideology. All it takes today is a barrage of insults.
Every day, we see across America signs of hope and progress. We see interracial couples, multi-racial churches, multi-racial groups of friends, and upwardly mobile black families. Is America perfect? Of course not. No society can ever be perfect because humans are fallen creatures. Fallen creatures hate. People of all colors hate. But our founding principles are good, and they are guiding us toward better.
Over a dozen years ago, while working at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois, I was helping a high school junior on her paper for American Studies (still co-taught by the same two teachers today). She cheerily told me that by the end of first semester in American Studies, she hated America and hated being an American. “Social justice” mission accomplished.
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School Board Member’s Offensive Statement About American Flag
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If Illinoisans want to know what’s wrong with public education, look no further than School District U-46, more specifically to the arrogant, self-righteous school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis who never misses an opportunity to insult conservative values through bigoted, divisive, uncivil language. She is the school board member who has twice gleefully referred to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention.”
Evidently wanting to outdo herself in offending a segment of the diverse community whose interests she laughingly claims to represent, she just posted this on her Facebook page:
I’m proud to stand with the sons of bitches on the field today. And I promise you I would #TakeAKnee at school board meetings if my doing so would not be disruptive to KIDS and a distraction to the work we need to do for THEM. But [Trump’s] remarks are nothing more than continued white nationalism at its finest. That flag means nothing more than toilet paper to me. [emphasis added]
By asserting that the American flag means nothing more than “toilet paper” to her, Ellis reveals her crudity and unprofessionalism.
Ellis’ unprofessional comment came to light when a concerned community member sent it to the only conservative on the U-46 school board, Jeanette Ward, who then re-posted it, with this brief statement:
This was sent to me by a very concerned constituent. A U-46 BOE colleague of mine has stated that our country’s flag means “nothing more than toilet paper”. I disagree in the strongest possible terms. Many patriotic Americans have shed their blood to defend the ideas and ideals America represents. To call it “nothing more than toilet paper” is absolutely despicable and disgusting.
Ellis, incensed that Ward and community members are (justifiably) upset by her juvenile comment, took to Facebook again to rationalize her comment and attack—not Ward’s brief comment—but Ward herself.
Ellis, who is black, began though with a summary of the tragic history of her family going back to the Middle Passage and continuing up to today when, Ellis reports, her family continues to experience racism. Because of this, she says that “The flag and the anthem are symbols in this country of freedom and ‘justice and liberty’ for all. Yet that is a blatant lie for black folks.”
But is it a “blatant lie for black folks”? Is there no justice or liberty for blacks?
I couldn’t possibly list all the blacks who have achieved success in virtually every area of life including the arts, military, government, journalism, athletics, academia, and medicine. Ellis herself is a sitting school board member and an attorney, and yet she claims there is no justice or liberty for blacks.
Ellis shares that she has “many family members and friends who now serve or have served in the United States military, and they have my deepest respect. But let’s be clear, I can love and respect them without loving a false symbol of hope.”
How is the flag that represents the ideals and principles that have helped rid our nation of the scourges of slavery, slave codes, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, and segregation a false symbol of hope? Is Ellis so blind that she cannot see how far this country has come in healing racial division? When I look around, I see daily marvelous evidence of racial unity. I see bi-racial couples, families that include adopted children of diverse races, churches with racially mixed congregations, colleges with racially mixed student bodies and faculties, and racially mixed groups of teens laughing together.
It is not the ideals and principles represented by the flag that have failed. It is fallen people who fail to live up to those ideals that have failed. It is fallen people who don’t recognize truth who perpetuate foolishness, injustice, and evil.
If the injustices that persist because of the fallenness of humans taint the flag for Ellis, then why don’t the great strides we’ve made in America in eradicating racial injustice generate in Ellis a love for the flag?
Ellis then behaved like a schoolyard bully, attacking Jeanette Ward personally:
Jeanette Ward is the most absurd hypocrite I have ever had the personal misfortune to know and have to yield any of my personal time to. She dares to claim free speech to castigate U-46 kids and deny the humanity of our LGBTQIA students. She constantly WHINES about lack of tolerance to diversity of thought and CRIES like a 2 year old that her freedom of speech is being impinged on when anyone dares to disagree with her. Yet she has the unmitigated gall to try to take me to task when I express MY OPINION on the flag on my personal Facebook page. Hey Jeanette (and anybody else offended by what I said), that’s not how free speech and liberty and the flag you love so much works. THAT’S. NOT. HOW. ANY. OF. THIS. WORKS.
Jeanette Ward has never denied “the humanity” of “LGBTQIA students.” When has she castigated U-46 kids and for what? Recognizing the profound meaning of objective, immutable biological sex, Jeanette Ward has worked courageously for the privacy rights of all students, which entailed opposing co-ed restrooms and locker rooms. Perhaps in Ellis’ twisted world, denying students access to the private spaces of opposite-sex persons constitutes “denying” their “humanity.”
All school board members, teachers, and administrators should care deeply about diversity of thought—something woefully absent in many public schools when it comes to matters related to race, sex, homosexuality, and the “trans” ideology. And school board members, teachers, and administrators—who are role models for children—should care deeply about how diverse views are expressed.
Ellis calls Ward’s 63-word comment on Ellis’ offensive Facebook post a galling attack on her speech rights. So what is Ellis’ 842-word screed in which she describes meeting Ward as a “personal misfortune,” and calls Ward an “absurd hypocrite” who “cries like a 2 year old”?
But Ward is not the only target of Ellis’ unrighteous indignation:
Finally, the fact that so many of you are coming UNHINGED over my post actually proves my point. The freedoms you enjoy and the flag you profess to love so much do not extend to me as a black woman. They are not my birthright. Yet I demand them anyway, and that demand includes the right to not feel any patriotism towards a piece of cloth and a pledge of allegiance to a country that does not love me back. Forced allegiance is not patriotism. It is fascism. And I will not bow to that.
Does Ellis actually think criticism of her Facebook post constitutes the denial of her freedoms? Does she think exercising her speech rights requires everyone else to remain silent? When she criticizes Republicans, conservatives, or colleagues is she denying them their birthright freedoms?
Ellis’ pouts that her country “does not love” her back. How did she arrive at that odd conclusion? Because her comment was criticized? Is she kidding? If she’s serious, what does her nasty personal attack on Ward mean? What do the hateful comments about Ward from Ellis’ fans in U-46 over the past six months mean?
Clearly Ellis doesn’t understand why so many people are upset by her adolescent “toilet paper” comment. People feel resentful about Ellis’ comment—not because they desire to force allegiance—but because the comment represents a myopic and distorted view of America, which is shaped by Critical Race Theory and promulgated as truth in public schools.
This ideology promotes an imbalanced, cynical view of American history. It encourages students to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics, which separates people into groups according to who are the purported oppressors and who the oppressed. It cultivates a sense of undeserved guilt on the part of the alleged oppressors and robs minority students of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives. Critical Race Theory (or teaching for “social justice”) is distinctly anti-American, hyper-focusing on America’s failings while diminishing or ignoring the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world, and enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.
Ellis holds in contempt the American flag about which President Barack Obama said, “”I revere the American flag, and I would not be running for president if I did not revere this country.”
The American flag that drapes the coffins of soldiers who have given their lives for this country—the country into which millions of people have sought and continue to seek refuge—is to Ellis something that people should use to clean themselves after defecating.
Ellis has a First Amendment right to say anything she wants, and her community has the right to decide whether she truly seeks to represent all members of her community in a professional manner. Ellis doesn’t seem to realize that school board members are role models for children or that she is a lousy one. If I were a member of her community, I would use my birthright freedom to give her the heave-ho.
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PODCAST: School Board Member’s Adolescent Statement About American Flag
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If Illinoisans want to know what’s wrong with public education, look no further than School District U-46, more specifically to the arrogant, self-righteous school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis who never misses an opportunity to insult conservative values through bigoted, divisive, uncivil language. She is the school board member who has twice gleefully referred to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention.”
Evidently wanting to outdo herself in offending a segment of the diverse community whose interests she laughingly claims to represent, she just posted this on her Facebook page:
I’m proud to stand with the sons of bitches on the field today. And I promise you I would #TakeAKnee at school board meetings if my doing so would not be disruptive to KIDS and a distraction to the work we need to do for THEM. But [Trump’s] remarks are nothing more than continued white nationalism at its finest. That flag means nothing more than toilet paper to me. [emphasis added]
By asserting that the American flag means nothing more than “toilet paper” to her, Ellis reveals her crudity and unprofessionalism.
Colin Kaepernick, NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, has generated a dust-up over his refusal to stand during the “Star Spangled Banner.” Kaepernick said “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
While some “progressives” are defending his stunt, arguing that a verse of the National Anthem that is never sung—anywhere—has a racist message, Kaepernick didn’t mention the National Anthem, he referred to the flag.
For those who don’t know, Colin Kaepernick was adopted by a white family after his destitute, 19-year-old, white birth mother gave him up. His black biological father abandoned him and his mother before his birth. Kaepernick excelled at basketball, baseball, and football in high school and in addition to a football scholarship, he was offered multiple scholarships to play collegiate baseball. He has made millions playing for the NFL since 2011.
So, some questions for Kaepernick:
When you say the country, what exactly do you mean? The government? Every branch of government? Every department? Every elected official? The Constitution? Laws? Which laws? The police? Every police department? Every police officer? Teachers in government schools?
Does your assessment of the unworthiness of America include the sacrifices of soldiers who have given their lives to defend and protect people all around the world? Does it include men like my father who served and suffered during WWII? Does it include missionaries and medical personnel like Jim Elliot and Natalie Bullock who sacrificed the comforts you enjoy and sometimes their lives because they love people of color?
Could it be that the “country” that oppresses people of color is primarily constituted by Democrats?
After all, it was Democrats who supported Jim Crow laws in the South.
It was only 23 percent of Democrats in Congress who supported the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, while 100 percent of Republicans supported it.
It was Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
It’s Democrats who have been promoting policies and laws that have incentivized fatherless families, which has long been known to be the central cause of poverty and anti-social behavior.
It was Democrats who through their demand that homoerotic unions be legally recognized as “marriages” have now institutionalized fatherless (and motherless) families.
It’s Democrats who for decades have controlled virtually every major American city where schools are failing people of color and where crime destroys lives.
It’s Democrats like Barack Obama who, while sending their children to elite, expensive private schools, deny school vouchers for inner city families of color whose children are instead forced into underperforming and dangerous schools. And it’s Democrats who protect teachers unions that enable terrible teachers to keep their jobs.
It’s Democrats who support Planned Parenthood, the baby-killing machine that profits from the deaths of far more babies of color than colorless babies.
One of the many problems with public schools today is the imbalanced and dishonest way they address the entwined issues of race and American history. Leftist “agents of change” (also known comically as teachers) present a lopsided view of American history, emphasizing the injustices that mar America’s history while de-emphasizing America’s social and political progress and acts of justice and compassion that ignite the imaginations of oppressed peoples around the world. America undeniably has a troubling history with regard to race, but that’s not the whole story.
America also has a remarkable history of racial and ethnic integration and an admirable history of self-correction. Is there a country on the planet that has as successfully integrated as many diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups as America? Is it possible to walk through a mall or a public school in America without seeing interracial couples or interracial, inter-ethnic groups of teenagers chatting and laughing together? Can you enter a church without seeing families that are multiracial by choice through adoption?
This is a country whose founding principles and documents have made possible the kind of social progress that enabled a biracial baby to be adopted by a white family and go on to earn millions. This is the country Kaepernick sees as “oppressive” and others see as a social and political marvel.
The American flag represents the greatest nation in history. It’s a country that countless people have died to defend or died in the attempt to arrive at its shores. While Kaepernick continues to publicly demonstrate his disappointment with our imperfect union, perhaps he could tell us which country’s flag he finds worthy of respect.
Presenting “Laurie’s Chinwags”
IFI is pleased to announce a new feature we are calling “Laurie’s Chinwags.” In light of changes in the way many Americans prefer to access information, we’re adding podcasts to our articles. Podcasts will accompany both our new articles as well as previous articles that are of particular importance and relevance. As we add podcasts to previous articles, we will republish them for our subscribers’ convenience.
We hope this new feature will serve the needs and desires of IFI subscribers, and we would appreciate any constructive feedback.
Homosexualists Abuse the Constitution—Again
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“For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.”
~1 Corinthians 3:19
(caution: may not be suitable for younger readers)
Men seeking sex with men have been using a particular public restroom in San Jose, California for their semi-clandestine, wholly vile activities for some years. In fact, it’s become such a popular gathering place for men whose sexual predilections involve public lavatories and strange men that a picnic table has been set up by the country health department offering free condoms and pamphlets about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections/diseases. This popular site for perverse sex just happens to be immediately next to a baseball diamond used by children for their baseball games which are, of course, attended by their families.
Attorney Bruce Nickerson, panties in a twist over a 2014-2015 sting operation that resulted in two dozen men being charged with “among other things, loitering near a bathroom with the intent to commit a lewd act,” plans on filing a class action lawsuit against the police department.
Nickerson sees the sting operation as a gross violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection before the law.” How so, you may be wondering. After pouring over the arrest records of the San Jose Police Department for similar sting operations, Nickerson discovered “the department has not made any decoy arrests for male-female lewd conduct,” which he views as a clear violation of the 14th Amendment. So now taxpayers will foot the bill to defend the purported violation of the rights of men who seek to have sex with men in a public restroom.
I wonder if Nickerson considered the possibility that more men seek sex with men in public restrooms than women seek sex with men in public restrooms or vice versa.
In his lawsuit, Nickerson, who views his effort as “the gay equivalent of stopping Jim Crow laws,” will be asking not only that “the police department stop these stings, but will also ask for the arrests to be removed from the defendants’ records and a ‘modest’ cash settlement.”
San Jose lesbian activist Gabrielle Antolovich argues that “Arresting people does not change anything.” What she wants is “dialogue and discussion” between “two different kinds of people using the same space.”
Yes, what this community needs is dialogue and discussion between children and their families who use the bathroom space for going to the bathroom and homosexuals who use the space for perverse anonymous sex.
I guess this is the kind of worldly “wisdom” we should expect from a lesbian who has been participating in and promoting perversity for decades. Back in 1990, the year she was “International Ms. Leather,” she shared(*warning: article contains offensive material not suitable for all audiences*) her views on lesbian sadism and masochism (S & M):
“Everyone has a different view of what whipping means to them. To the outside world, it all looks the same: flog, flog, flog. But when I have a whip in my hand, that’s an extension of me—from the whip to the person I’m whipping. For me, the whip is like a magic wand. When the body of the partner submits, it’s a gift.”
She stops and points to the center of her palm. “When you use a whip, this part of your hand gets hot. I discovered that in alternative medicine; this is the sexual meridian, the spiritual place. Have you noticed how in Renaissance and other religious paintings, this is where the light comes out?”
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“Look, I go to S-M parties and sometimes I think, ‘I can’t believe I’m into this,'” Antolovich confesses. “It’s ugly. I want to throw up. So I go to the bathroom and tell myself, ‘This is your old attitude.’ Sometimes I look at my lover and say, ‘I can’t believe I want to do this to her.’ But I know it’s just the old stuff, the old propaganda.”
Antolovich says that in the long run the S and M life has made her wiser, more community-oriented, infinitely happier. “I have to be worthy to be given to. I have to develop in the way that a person wants to give to me. I look at my lover and I know I can have anything I want. And she knows she can too. It’s amazing. Think about that.”
Antolovich’s words are amazing. Her words illustrate that the abandonment of truth results in all manner of destruction and chaos, affecting human will, emotions, and thoughts.
Homosexual and sex-rejecting (aka “transgender”) activists have been abusing, exploiting, and perverting the U.S. Constitution to serve their sexually anarchistic cultural revolution for years. Their revolution recognizes no authority and few boundaries. The public good and truth of marriage and properly ordered sexuality, the rights of children, and the Constitution will be sacrificed on the twin altars of perverse sexual desire and absolute autonomy
Our Founding Fathers—deists and theists alike—must be whirling maelstroms in their resting places over the abuse of the U.S. Constitution to enable public homosex.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
~Jeremiah 17:9
IFI Faith, Family & Freedom Banquet
We are excited to have as our keynote speaker this year, former Congresswoman and Tea Party Caucus Leader, Michele Bachman!
Please register today, before the early bird special expires…
