Resist Jeff Sessions, Attorney General Designate Who said K.K.K. Was “Okay”

image

Jeff “the bigot” Sessions

Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed just how lethal the institution of American policing is to the daily lives of Black people—with examples of case after case, all across America, where innocent African-Americans are constantly being brutalized and killed by police officers.

With the weird encroaching reality of a Donald Trump presidency, police brutality on Black communities may be about to get even more bloody.

Donald Trump, the spoiled son of a rich man, has used bigotry and racism to con legions of White Americans into voting for him, and will now be president at a time of heightened racial anxiety.

What will Trump’s Justice Department look like, especially if Senator Jeff Sessions becomes Attorney General?Black lives have been snuffed out as a result of racist police policies. In fact, the current Justice Department has several ongoing cases where certain police departments are being investigated for racist practices.

The next Department of Justice Department (DOJ) will most certainly be led by those who will do everything in their power to undermine racial discrimination cases; especially, as they pertain to law enforcement. We will also see a resumption of the harsh sentencing laws that disproportionately affect African-Americans.

Whomever is given reign of the Trump DOJ, part of their objective will be to stop any initiatives that were enacted to combat institutional racism in law enforcement. There are approximately some 23 current investigations examining certain law enforcement agencies related to racial policing and such. The return of “law and order” means racial profiling will be encouraged—with the full blessing of the Trump White House.

Republican Alabama Senator Sessions is now being tapped to be the next attorney general. This is the same Sessions who, in 1986, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship—a judgeship he never got, after he was rejected by a Republican controlled Senate. The reason? Damning evidence that Sessions is a racist.

Is this confirmation that Republicans are now officially more racist? What was unpalatable in 1986 is today acceptable?

For one thing, according to lawyer Thomas Figures, who testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986, Sessions who served as Alabama’s attorney general once said he thought the “Ku Klux Klan was O.K. until he learned that they smoke pot.”

Supposedly, Sessions later claimed it was a joke. The real joke is that someone so racially insensitive would be seriously considered to be attorney general.

Mr. Figures said Sessions referred to groups like the NAACP, SCLC and Operation PUSH as “un-American organizations” teaching “anti-American values.” J. Gerald Hebert, a then Justice Department lawyer, testified that Sessions said the NAACP and ACLU were “communist inspired” and “un-American.”

During those hearings, it was alleged that Sessions called Douglas Wicks—the first African-American elected to the Mobile County Commission, in Alabama, since Reconstruction—a “nigger.” When asked by then Delaware Senator Joe Biden about this Sessions’ denied it, in part by saying that at the time he allegedly made the “nigger” comment that “there was not a Black county commissioner at the time” and that “the Black was elected later.” However, Sessions’ claim that Wicks was “elected later” was proven to be false.

Quite tellingly, do you notice the similarity of language in Sessions’ use of the term “the Black” to Trump’s use of it during the campaign? Indeed, birds of a feather do flock together. Like pigs wallowing in filth, Trump’s and Sessions’s views seem to come from the same racist pigsty.

Mr. Wicks said he was told by others of Sessions’ slur and stated that Sessions was routinely hostile to Black people. According to Wicks, “Sessions decided to go after me because he didn’t get the federal judgeship.” Wicks was prosecuted and convicted by Sessions—who, apparently, used his position as Alabama’s attorney general to exact revenge.

What should Black people expect from an attorney general who has no problem using his political position to satisfy vendettas?

Some have pointed out that Sessions has consistently fought against Affirmative Action and Civil Rights legislation. He reportedly once called a White attorney a “race traitor”–because the attorney supported voting rights for Black people. This is important since Sessions, when he was Alabama’s attorney general, prosecuted three Civil Rights workers, in 1984, for what he claimed was voter fraud. These Civil Rights workers—known as the Marion Three—were in fact trying to register Black people to vote. They were easily acquitted because of the non-existence of real evidence in the case.

The late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy said of Sessions’ nomination that it was “inconceivable” that “a person of this attitude is qualified to be a US attorney, let alone a United States judge.” Kennedy went on to say Sessions’ hearing showed evidence “clear and convincing to gross insensitivity to the questions of race.”

Former Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum called Sessions “A nominee who is hostile, hostile to civil rights organizations and their causes.” Metzenbaum characterized Sessions as a person of “marginal qualifications who lacks judicial temperament.”

Interestingly, “temperament” has become a buzzword because of Trump’s bullying buffoonery. With Sessions as the attorney general—along with people like former Mayor Rudy Giuliani somewhere in the mix—we will definitely see a backlash against those fighting the scourge of police prejudice and violence against Black people and for civil rights and social equality.

Activist groups like Black Lives Matter will surely be targeted for retribution—especially, since phonies like Mayor Giuliani and Governor Chris Christi have shamefully slandered this organization, by falsely claiming they have called for attacks on police.

Racial profiling will become an even more routine practice with these charlatans at the helm. Black America must be prepared to battle this amoral group of racists—who will surely bring unimaginable ill-repute to this country. For the next four years, maximum resistance and massive demonstrations must be deployed to combat the evil of Trump and his band of racial provocateurs.

Consider Trump’s other appointment so far to a senior post. Racial flame-thrower Steve Bannon, Breitbart News’ editor is the new chief “strategist.”

Mainstream media can’t even bring themselves to call these people what they are: retrograde racists. There is now much euphemistic antiseptic talk about the “alt-right.”

These wrong-headed racist White supremacists are licking their chops waiting to “take the country back” to a place where Blacks are pushed to the “back of the bus,” while other minority groups like Latinos and Muslims are also marginalized.

The corporate media is the primary reason for the now impending Trump presidency, with their craven coverage of him—which legitimized him in the mind of millions of Americans—because he represented a media ratings bonanza. Now they can’t even find their journalistic spine to call out the clear and present racism that is present inside the Trump inner circle.

Black America will be facing a racist revival over the next four years. The blowback has already started. Black people should not expect anyone else but themselves to ensure their well being and survival. All must join an organization –any organization– dedicated to the uplift of Black people.

Apparently, some White progressives are now advancing the absurd theory that while Trump used racism and bigotry to win he will now behave much differently as president.

Surely, Trump has conned many White Americans into voting for him with promises he never intended to keep. It is demented thinking to believe that someone who “won” the presidency using bigotry and racism would somehow do a total turnaround. In any case, he has unleashed and emboldened some of the ugliest forces in this country; he himself won’t be able to contain them.

Racism and bigotry was the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign—and his presidency will use those tools to retain power. That means racist repression will be heavily deployed in law enforcement.

The appointment of Jeff Sessions, whose views would have been shameful even in the 1950s, is a clear signal of that.

All of Black America, along with minority groups like Latinos and Muslims must be prepared to resist the reactionary forces Trump has assembled for his White House for the next four years.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *