Yesterday the Republican caucus of the Tennessee state legislature voted to expel from that body two young Black Democrats, Rep. Justin Jones, and Rep. Justin Pearson, over actions they took in the chamber in support of constituents who had gathered in the wake of the March 27 mass shooting at a Nashville school. Notably, Rep. Gloria Johnson (D), who participated with Reps. Jones and Pearson in their actions but like the vast majority of the Republican caucus is White, was not expelled.
We can perhaps be grateful that Tennessee's Republicans took such unequivocally racist action while squarely in the national spotlight, leaving themselves not so much as a fig leaf to hide behind and allowing us to waste no time swatting down bad-faith arguments. The facts are as plain as day: Reps. Jones and Pearson were expelled for serving their constituents and exercising their First Amendment rights, while Black.
Both men have been thorns in the side of Tennessee conservatives since well before they were elected. Jones has been repeatedly arrested for nonviolent protests, including a 62-day sit-in following the police murder of George Floyd; Pearson founded a grassroots environmental group that was instrumental in preventing a multibillion-dollar crude oil pipeline from running through the city of Memphis.
As members of the legislature, both have continued to raise the ire of conservative colleagues, issuing resounding retorts to Republican bills, policies, and statements–indeed, Pearson's attire and hair at his swearing-in were reason enough for GOP consternation. When a Republican representative sought to introduce an amendment to add "hanging by a tree" as a form of execution in the state, Pearson responded by honoring Black Tennesseeans who had been lynched "in the service of White supremacy"–only to have his mic swiftly cut by the Speaker of the House. Similarly, Jones attempted to honor civil rights icon Dr. Charles Kimbrough, but the vote was bumped because the resolution employed the word "oppressed"; only after stripping the word from the resolution did Republicans agree to bring the resolution to a vote.
This is the context in which the expulsion of Reps. Jones and Pearson must be understood. It is not enough for the overwhelmingly White Republican super-majority to have full control of the state legislative body and its agenda; the mere presence of young Black Democrats in a position to shine a light on their anti-democratic, pro-gun lobby, pro-corporation, and openly racist policies, laws, and actions cannot be abided. Not even the gruesome murder of six Tennesseans–three of them nine years old–was reason enough to stay Republicans' hands.
Furthermore, as Jones has noted, this is only the third time in the post-Civil War history of the Tennessee state legislature that expulsion votes have been held, placing him and Pearson in the company of a representative expelled over 22 counts of sexual harassment, and another who had been caught in the act of taking bribes. As to the fact that their White colleague was not also expelled, Rep. Johnson herself responded quite bluntly: "You cannot ignore the racial dynamic of what happened today. Two young Black lawmakers get expelled and the one white woman does not?"
The out-of-control gun culture that facilitated the murders at Covenant School is an immediate, harrowing, and daily threat to the public safety not just of Tennesseans but of everyone in this nation; so too is the daily gun violence that fails to gain headlines but claims more than 45,000 victims every single year.
What yesterday's vote made abundantly clear, however, is that none of that bloodshed is nearly as important to the Tennessee state legislature as punishing two young Black men for being uppity.