Crockett Senate Poll Questioned. Black Woman Fights Disenfranchisement. Assault on Black History.
Quick Read
Summary
Takeaways
- ❖An Emerson poll showing Texas State Representative James Talarico leading Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett by 9 points is an outlier, contradicting other polls and showing methodological flaws, particularly in how it accounts for Democratic voters.
- ❖White progressives' critiques of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett are often seen as misinformed about Texas politics and potentially rooted in misogynoir, undermining Democratic unity.
- ❖Tennessee activist Pamela Moses is the first person in 100 years to challenge the state's felony disenfranchisement laws, which disproportionately affect Black Tennessans and prevent them from voting or holding public office.
- ❖The Trump administration removed approved Black historical figures (Frederick Douglas, Ruby Bridges) from US 250th-anniversary commemorative coins, replacing them with white 'patriots' and violating legal protocols.
- ❖Texas A&M University canceled an ethics class due to a new ban on teaching gender and race ideology, part of a right-wing agenda to control education and suppress academic freedom.
- ❖The host criticizes 'silent and complicit negroes' in positions of power who fail to protect Black interests against white supremacist agendas, particularly during MLK weekend.
Bottom Line
The 'white savior' complex in Texas Democratic politics actively undermines viable Black candidates by pushing for white candidates perceived as more 'palatable' to conservatives, despite historical evidence that this strategy fails to win statewide elections.
This approach alienates the crucial Black and brown voter base, which constitutes 60% of Texas's population and represents the primary untapped potential for Democratic victories.
Focusing on robust voter mobilization and organization within Black and brown communities, rather than appealing to an unreachable conservative white demographic, offers a clear mathematical path to victory in Texas.
Felony disenfranchisement laws, like those in Tennessee, are a modern vestige of Jim Crow, designed to create a 'politics of disposability' for marginalized communities by stripping them of fundamental civic rights (voting, holding office) long after incarceration.
These laws perpetuate systemic racial inequality, suppress voter turnout among Black populations, and entrench conservative political power, hindering any meaningful policy change.
Legal challenges, like Pamela Moses's case, offer a critical pathway to restore voting rights for hundreds of thousands, potentially shifting political landscapes and empowering historically marginalized communities.
The Trump administration's direct intervention to remove Black historical figures from national commemorative coins, replacing them with white 'founding fathers,' reveals a brazen 'ahistoricity' and a deliberate attempt to whitewash American history.
This act of historical revisionism denies the full, diverse narrative of the nation's past and sends a clear message of exclusion to Black Americans, undermining efforts for national unity and accurate historical education.
Countering this requires proactive efforts to create alternative platforms for historical representation (e.g., independent coin companies) and sustained advocacy for inclusive historical narratives in public spaces and education.
The implementation of 'snitch portals' and 'exemption traps' in Texas universities, aimed at censoring 'race and gender ideology,' creates a hostile academic environment where professors risk termination for discussing factual historical or social issues.
This policy stifles academic freedom, compromises the quality of education by limiting critical thought, and disproportionately targets Black faculty and curricula, mirroring broader authoritarian trends.
Faculty, students, and parents must unite to resist these incursions, provide legal and advisory support to affected professors, and advocate for academic autonomy to ensure students are prepared for a diverse and complex world.
Lessons
- Challenge biased political polling methodologies and narratives that undermine diverse candidates, especially those targeting Black women in politics.
- Support legal and grassroots efforts to overturn felony disenfranchisement laws, recognizing their historical roots in Jim Crow and their disproportionate impact on Black communities.
- Advocate for accurate and inclusive historical representation in national symbols and educational curricula, actively resisting attempts to whitewash or erase Black contributions.
- Demand accountability from Black leaders in positions of power who remain silent or complicit in policies that harm Black interests, especially during moments of racial injustice.
- Embrace and promote the 'radical King' vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., focusing on mass protests, economic withdrawal, and systemic change rather than superficial 'day of service' activities.
Notable Moments
The host, Roland Martin, directly calls out Bill Mayomes, a Black Texas A&M Regent, for his silence and complicity in the university's anti-diversity policies, accusing him of prioritizing personal gain over protecting Black student and faculty interests.
This moment highlights the critical issue of accountability within Black leadership, particularly when individuals in powerful positions are perceived as enabling systemic injustices against their own community.
Roland Martin recounts an anecdote where Senator Chuck Schumer's attempt at 'bipartisanship' by downplaying Trump's opposition to the Chips Act was immediately undermined by a Republican official who later trashed the bill as 'DEI crap.'
This illustrates the futility of seeking bipartisanship with political opponents who are not operating in good faith and will publicly undermine collaborative efforts, reinforcing the need for a more confrontational 'radical King' approach.
Quotes
"Talarico's lead within this poll comes from Republicans, apparently, may have said they're going to vote Democratic poll, but he leads among Republicans and then independents, which is very fraught issue in terms of how those different people are going to be. But this is a Democratic primary. And even in the Emerson poll when you drill down to the specific people who self-identify as Democrats, Crockett leads."
"There's a predisposition to want to or feel comfortable to actually attack the black woman candidate that I don't think there's a lot of self-awareness about in the Democratic party."
"Texas is an unorganized state. Now, it does not mean that you don't have black conservatives, Latino conservatives, Asian-American conservatives... But the reality is that's what you find in this state. Democrats have frankly given up on this state for a very long time."
"No Democrat candidate, no Democratic candidate, I don't care who that person is... there is no Democratic candidate who can come close to beating a Republican in Texas if you piss off the one group that represents the largest group of eligible black voters of any state in the United States, and that's black Texans."
"It's the progressives wanting to find what they believe to be the white savior, the person that they think is going to be most palatable to the crazies out in West Texas who are absolutely not going to vote Democrat anyway, who they want to bring over."
"There is a fundamental lack of moral and intellectual consistency in the ways that people are thinking about these two candidates. And fundamentally, let's tell the truth, these two candidates are are exceptional on domestic issues. Crockett, in particular, has shown over and over and over again that she is a fighter. She is not afraid to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump and we need people like that in this era of fascism and authoritarianism."
"This is a continuation of these ways to get around the 15th amendment of 1870... So, this is a continuation of these ways to get around the 15th amendment of 1870. And I I find it interesting that you have Donald Trump today, you have Republicans today uh saying that we want to feel Dr. King's legacy, so we're going to wipe out all of these uh discriminatory policies."
"The law says no living president shall go on a coin. So, I want to offer, okay, if you want to put Trump on there, a significant part of our American history is that we had an African-American president and an African-American vice president. That's historical for all of our 250 years."
"This is straight up ahistoricity. And honestly, I I'm somewhere between enraged and like on the verge of tears almost because it's so sad and so shameful that 250 years into this project called the United States of America, the leaders in this country still refuse to reckon with this nation's original sins, child slavery, indigenous genocide, land theft."
"What they want to do is they believe that Texas universities are too liberal and they actually want to turn Texas A&M into the most conservative institution in the state."
"I am sick of Dr. King being positioned as a civil rights bobblehead. I'm sick of people sitting here saying, 'Oh my god, Dr. King wanted all of us to get along.'... No, Dr. King was a radical. Dr. King was somebody who had a radical vision for this country."
Q&A
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