Our peculiar institution

 On the seventieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education let's see how America is doing with its peculiar institution, racism.

Daniel Perry was serving a 25-year sentence for murdering Garrett Foster, a white man who was carrying a rifle while marching in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Austin, both perfectly legal in Texas.  Greg Abbott ordered his hand-picked parole board to "consider" the conviction and then pardoned Perry, restoring his gun rights, citing Texas's "Stand Your Ground" law and saying it cannot be "nullified" by a jury or a "progressive" district attorney.  


Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA has spent months ramping up his attacks on Martin Luther King and civil rights generally, to the point where even some Republicans are backing away (quietly).  Not Trump, who welcomed him to Motel a Lago and praised his work in suppressing Black voters:  "Turning Point is a GREAT Organization doing critical work to Get Out The Vote, and make our Victory TOO BIG TO RIG."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed two bills that would have removed tax exemptions from the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  Earlier this week two schools in Shenandoah County had the names of seditious Confederate generals restored.

The Missouri Republican Party wanted Darrell McClanahan barred from its gubernatorial primary just because he once held an "honorary" membership in the Ku Klux Klan.  The request was denied by Judge Cotton Walker.  McClanahan describes himself as "pro-white" but not racist or antisemitic.  His lawyer, Dave Roland, clarified:  "[They] wanted to make a very big public show that they don't want to be associated with racism or antisemitism.  And the best way they could do that was filing a case that they knew was almost certain to lose."  Are Missouri Republicans that cunning?  McClanahan says he once attended "a private religious Christian identity cross lighting ceremony falsely described as a cross burning."  Lighting, burning, who can tell the difference?

According to Haaretz, Trump's hand-picked Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde has a bit of an antisemitism problem.  He likes to talk about the "Davos crowd" and invoke the "Great Reset" conspiracy theory.  Or as he calls it, "Restoring the American Dream."

When Genesis White Bull graduated from high school in Farmington, New Mexico, she decorated her cap with beadwork and a white plume, the traditional Hunkpapa Lakota way of marking a milestone in life.  The school removed the beadwork and plume and forced her to wear a plain cap.  They apologized after video of the removal went viral, acknowledging that "this could have been handled differently and better."







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