America’s inability to confront our original sins against the indigenous people of the “New World” and the African slave trade atrocities the United States was built upon continues to retard our country’s ability to break through into a more humane and egalitarian future. Tennessee’s House of Representatives is a very Republican affair. State Rep. John Ray Clemmons is one of a handful of Democrats elected. He’s the only Democrat on the state’s House State Government Subcommittee—the legislative body that allows introduced bills and resolutions to be brought to the floor for debate before voting. Rep. Clemmons thought that he could propose a no-brainer resolution that would denounce neo-Nazi groups as terrorists and call out other white supremacist fascist groups in a similar fashion. He was right about the phrase “no-brainer,” as his fellow state reps clearly have no brains.
State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D) sponsored the resolution which went beyond condemning the movement, without naming specific groups, using "terrorism" language. It also called on law enforcement to pursue the "criminal elements" within them "with the same fervor used to protect the United States from other manifestations of terrorism."
The resolution did not get a second motion to proceed with debate during a meeting of the House State Government Subcommittee, which means it will not make it to a vote by the full legislature. It was introduced by the committee's sole Democrat and did not have support from the Republicans on the committee.
Tennessee Republicans seem to realize that their bread is buttered with the blood of innocent people.
The resolution's spot on the subcommittee calendar came just days after white nationalist group Identity Evropa held a flash mob demonstration outside the Parthenon in Nashville on Sunday.
Roughly 60 people from the group, which was among the participants in the Charlottesville torch march and Unite the Right rally in August, stood outside the Parthenon building in Centennial Park, holding a 40-foot banner touting their “European roots.”
Our country was forged with blood. That blood is on all of our hands, and our denials in dealing with those truths continue to be our country’s most tragic flaw.