[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 63 (Monday, April 17, 2023)] [House] [Pages H1744-H1751] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-17
Chamber: HOUSE
Ms. JACKSON LEE: I am delighted but sad but empowered but anguished but yet fulfilled but yet rising but yet encouraged but yet ready to fight this evening. I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for her distinguished leadership and friendship. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted as well with the gentleman from Illinois for his shining leadership and transformational changes that are happening in and around his district in Chicago. I am honored to be here with my other colleagues that are here. I thank Chairman Horsford and Chairwoman Beatty, emeritus of the Congressional Black Caucus, and I am honored to again call the Congressional Black Caucus the conscience of the Congress, and, yes, the conscience of the Nation. We can say that because in our midst we have had the Honorable John Lewis. Mr. Speaker, I want to go down memory lane just a bit. As I do so and before I speak to the irony of the connection of the Tennessee Three to the historical record. Does anyone remember the Georgia 33, as we have brought to highlight? There were 33 Black legislators right after the Civil War, 1866 to 1868, proud and standing tall because they had some way of gaining the right to vote and the people there--the freed slaves, after the 13th Amendment was eliminated ending slavery in the United States--our freed slaves could vote. Property owners, as I believe.  They elected 33 Black legislators, and they were proud. You could see them with their button-down suits, speaking the best English they could, and fighting for their constituents. That is what we are to do here. Listening to the people and having the ear of their constituents. Yet, within a few moments of their great victory, election to the Georgia Assembly they were expelled, thrown out because of the color of their skin, which began the demise of reconstruction and the Black codes and the horrors of the rage of the Klan and others leading into the 1900s. Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of George White who stood on the floor in1901, who had been drawn out of this Congress, a Member of Congress, and said: The Negro will rise like the phoenix. Then in 1966--I am still stunned--a brilliant young man by the name of Julian Bond was duly-elected by the constituents, he had their ear, and they had his ear. A young man. He had all the willingness to do what was right as an elected member of the Georgia Assembly, and he was expelled for his supporting the fact of the SNCC, the organization that he previously led, indicating that the Vietnam war violated international law. He didn't speak of the soldiers, which I have repeatedly said that our soldiers put on uniforms unselfishly. We never accuse them. They fight and they die. They died in Vietnam from all of our communities from the South to the North to the East to West, from our backyards. But because he expressed a democratic belief, meaning his right to a belief that might have been different, and because of democracy he had the right to speak, he was expelled. Now we come to the fear and the absolute outrage of lack of understanding. I am baffled by the expulsion of the Tennessee Three: Representative Pearson, Representative Jones, and Representative Johnson. All they did was come to hear the cries of America's best, the youth, the children, crying out again: How much more bloodshed can we take? The Congressional Black Caucus has been a leading force joining with our colleagues. Mr. Speaker, let me say this tonight--we come from the same State-- let me just say this. We all tend to oratory, we are passionate and emotional. After all these years and all the deaths of children, can we find even a sense of Congress that will lead us to be able to condemn gun violence as being the number one killer of our children through homicide? The very fact that four children died and other innocent persons in Nashville just a mere couple of weeks ago, I want you to know that I feel personal pain when the news rises up in the early morning hours of what happened the night before, or the weekend, I have a personal pain. My tenure here was a tenure during the assault weapons ban, but in the midst there was Columbine. The numbers showed that they went down, the assault weapon incidences. Now I am living with Sandy Hook. I am living with Parkland, Virginia Tech. I am living with Texas Tech. I am living with any number of those in Texas from the Walmart to the church to Uvalde where I went and talked with the families and went to funerals and cried and wondered why children were dead--19 of them. These young men in Tennessee were walking the pathway of the Georgia 33 and Julian Bond. As history reflects, they did nothing wrong. These three individuals, one who was not expelled, did nothing wrong as well. They were representing their constituents. They were nonviolent. They were in the midst of civil disobedience. They could not be heard. They were on the floor where one could do a lot of things. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article titled ``The `All Things Being Equal Test' Part II: Blatant Racism in the Tennessee House.''  [From Forbes, Apr 7, 2023]  The `All Things Being Equal Test' Part II: Blatant Racism in The Tennessee House  (By Susan Harmeling)  The shocking but not surprising expulsion of two young Black men by the Tennessee State Legislature while their 60- year-old White colleague was spared ouster despite breaking house rules in the exact same way is a blatant display of racism, pure and simple. It may sound ridiculously obvious, but it needs saying. Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were clearly kicked out because they are Black, and also supposedly not ``apologetic'' enough for their White, male counterparts who decided to pursue the nuclear option and remove them from office instead of using other, lesser punishments such as censure. Representative Gloria Johnson, who a few days earlier had joined Jones and Pearson in taking to the house floor to demand an assault weapons ban following the slaughter of three little kids in their school, was protected by her whiteness, as she herself publicly stated. This is an important moment in our society as it exposes both an ugly truth and an opportunity for progress. The ugly truth is obvious: two young, Black men in Tennessee--the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan--were expelled for breaking rules of ``decorum'' while their White colleague who, again, joined them every step of the way still has her job. As Rep. Jones pointed out, there have been only two other expulsions from the Tennessee House in the last 157 years. In l980, a representative was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office and in 2016, another was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment. Recently, neither an arrest on charges of domestic violence nor admitted child molestation nor alleged urination on the seat of a fellow legislator was enough to warrant these offenders expulsion, but loudly protesting inaction on gun violence after three 9-year-olds are executed--and especially protesting such horror while Black-- was reason enough for a Republican supermajority to take this extreme action. In a particularly repulsive and condescending comment, Rep. Andrew Farmer, R-Seviervi11e, blamed Pearson for throwing a ``temper tantrum with an adolescent bullhorn''. He continued addressing Pearson, ``That yearning for attention, that's what you wanted? Well, you're getting it now.'' Farmer may as well have preceded his ugly rant with the word ``boy'' for good measure. But take heart! Farmer is right in one sense--these young men are clearly going to get attention, just not the kind of attention Farmer was hoping for. This is clearly not the last we have heard from Jones and Pearson, both of whom are extraordinarily talented young legislators and orators. In fact, the Tennessee Republicans picked the wrong targets if they are hoping for this issue to go away. I personally have hope that their strong and powerful voices, particularly on the epidemic of gun violence, will not be silenced by this temporary, unjustified setback. I would like to focus on the opportunity--and more specifically the lesson--that this sorry episode presents. Too often, white people (or any people whose own ``tribe'' acts in such a blatantly racist way) look for alternative explanations for such behavior. But if it walks like racism and quacks like racism, it is racism. Due to our tendency toward homophily, our knee-jerk reaction is to start explaining away the bad behavior of people who look like we do. But we have to stop it. And the best way to stop it is to put the episode through the ``all-things-being-equal'' test (otherwise know as the ``but for'' test), as in, would these young men have been expelled ``but for'' their race? Well, in this case, our answer was served up on a silver platter because Rep. Johnson was spared while her two colleagues lost their seats. Typically, it's a bit more subtle. Would I have been called ``confident'' in teaching evaluations but for my gender? The answer is no, because not one single one of my male counterparts ever saw that adjective on their evaluations. Their confidence was simply assumed. Would Joe Biden have called Barack Obama ``clean and articulate'' but for Obama's race? No, because in the next breath he called him the first ``mainstream African American''. Would a young woman I recently interviewed have been asked by an older male colleague what she was making her boyfriend for dinner had the gender roles been reversed? Again, very doubtful (she swears she doesn't cook and never told this man that she does). Would George Floyd still be here today but for his race? Would a young, Black female former student of mine have been told by her White male boss that she could get promoted more quickly if she just ``told a few more jokes'' ``but for'' her race and gender? You get the idea. . . Assumptions, stereotypes, and the natural human desire to hang around with our ``Amen Choir'' only serve to further divide us and to keep certain members of society from reaching their full potential. I suspect that those conservative, White, male Tennessee legislators would be a lot more comfortable with Reps. Jones and Pearson if they tried harder to conform to their ways of dress, behavior, speech and ``decorum''. In fact, Representative Pearson's previous decision to wear a traditional, African dashiki on the house floor really got some of those guys riled up. But the promise of America is that it is a melting pot where we are called by our better angels to treat all fellow citizens with respect and tolerance. And the punishment for rule-breaking (or law-breaking) should be proportionate to the transgression, and the same for everyone. The quest for fairness in all areas of society, from law to politics to business to our many daily personal interactions, would benefit from the regular application of the all-things-being- equal test--``but for'' the individual's race, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc, would things have played out in the same way? In Tennessee, if you're a young, Black male in the statehouse, the answer is clearly no.