Month: June 2015

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1374

Logo No Go

Not only is it crude and embarrassing, the controversial new $46,000 Tennessee logo doesn’t meet the criteria for a trademark. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the red and blue box with the state’s “TN” abbreviation is too “geographically descriptive.” That means a trademark could grant the holder exclusive rights to design elements that other parties need for general identification and use.

Like the USPTO says in its FAQ, “Under U.S. trademark law, geographic terms or signs are not registrable as trademarks if they are geographically descriptive or geographically misdescriptive of where the goods/services originate. The theory is that other producers in that area would need to be able to use a geographic term to describe where their goods/services are from and that one person should not be able to prevent others from using that term.”

Guns & Money

Media outlets and gun dealers have a special relationship. Every headline about crime sells more guns. Every article about the virtues of guns sells more guns. Every article calling for gun control also sells more guns. At least the Commercial Appeal put its post-Charleston full-page gun ad on page 13.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Take It Down

CREDIT: Daseaford | Dreamstime.com

Wave goodbye the Confederate battle flag in South Carolina. And don’t use “heritage and history” as an excuse to keep it there. Just take it down.

Like every other human being who reads and watches the news and has a conscience, I’ve been grappling with the mass murder of nine people in a Bible study group at their church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week. Like millions of others, I have been trying to wrap what’s left of my brain around how a 21-year-old could have so much hate in his heart that he could sit in church with the parishioners for an hour before opening fire on them (sparing the life of one woman so she could explain to people what happened). Like millions of others, I have come to the conclusion that we’ll never quite understand it all. And like millions of others, I keep thinking about how we should progress from here and if there is any possible good that can come from this.

Daseaford | Dreamstime.com

Maybe it’s the fact that this heinous crime has furthered — catapulted, actually — the discussion about why South Carolina has no hate crime laws and whether it should stop flying a Confederate flag on its State House grounds. This controversy engendered an entire new language: Republican Beat Around the Bush Speak.

I just watched Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee try to state his opinion on the matter on one of the Sunday-morning political shows. It was like he was speaking a language that heretofore didn’t exist. He simply made no sense.

I hate to politicize a tragedy like this, but it’s already done. Whether to remove the flag is already a standard question for the presidential hopefuls, and so far the only one to demand its removal, as far as I know, is Mitt Romney, and good for him. The rest of them are hiding behind the tiresome and ancient notion of “states’ rights” and dodging the question.

Same with hate crime bills. I heard one pundit say, “Hate is not a crime.” Maybe it’s time we changed the laws and put hate groups out of business for good, so they don’t influence young people like Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who confessed to the murders.

Am I missing something here? Does the rest of civilized society have to leave it to the people of one state to decide whether a symbol of hate and slavery should continue to be one of its calling cards?

I guess we could all boycott South Carolina, but that would be an affront to all of the good people who live there, and there are plenty of them. They are the norm. Not everyone in South Carolina is obsessed with the flag being about “heritage and history, not hate” — a repugnant ideology, given the fact that it was created as a symbol for white people to buy, sell, and trade African prisoners and brutalize them whenever the whim struck.

Perhaps the most ironic thing about the Confederate flag waving proudly as a reminder of dear old Dixie is that, while the state lowered the state flag and the American flag to half-mast in recognition of the nine African-American worshippers who were gunned down in their own church by a self-proclaimed racist, a bizarre South Carolina law prevented the lowering of the Confederate flag!

I dearly love the South. I was born and raised here. I talk to Europeans and visitors from around the world every day about the virtues of the South: the food, the culture, the laid-back lifestyle, the friendly people, the music, and the feeling they experience when here. And while I think South Carolina ought to remove that flag immediately, I think we in Memphis ought to take a look at ourselves again and remove that monument on Union Avenue to the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest. And I think our school system should incorporate some sort of anti-discrimination curriculum starting in pre-K and going all the way through 12th grade as a way to start stopping all of this racism mess, because right now it seems this country is regressing rather than progressing on the issue.

A great place for South Carolina’s Confederate flag to rest would be in our own National Civil Rights Museum. It could be displayed next to the authentic and chilling Ku Klux Klan robe and hood that are already there. And photos of the remaining all-white country clubs in Memphis should also be in the display. Didn’t think we still had those? Think again. They hide their bigotry behind the guise of “private membership,” but they don’t allow black or Jewish members. Maybe we should ask the families of the nine people murdered in Charleston last week how they feel about that.

Categories
Book Features Books

For one Memphis book dealer, the old way is still the best way.

Susan Davis isn’t sure about the number of used books she has for sale, but her guess would be around 2,500 — in her words, “a modest amount.”

First editions and signed editions, fiction and nonfiction, special interest and local interest, Davis’ inventory lines the walls of several rooms in this one-woman show, Susan Davis Bookseller, which is housed, literally, in a quiet East Memphis neighborhood. Ask her how she keeps track of her inventory, however, and the answer’s simple, because there’s not much high tech here:

“I tend to remember what books I have,” Davis said after an open house that she recently held. (Her business is normally open by appointment only.) “For consigned items, I do keep a detailed list,” she added. “But most of the books are in my head. I tend to remember where I got them, what I paid for them.”

What you’ll pay for one of Davis’ more expensive items is $800, which is what she’s asking for a worn but handsome, oversize monastery song book (in Gregorian chant), whose previous owner Davis described as an Arkansas hermit.

One thousand five hundred dollars (marked down from the original asking price of $5,000) is what you’ll pay for a particular favorite of Davis’: Men of Mark (1913), a book of photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn, a contemporary of Stieglitz and Steichen. But she has some signed Faulkners on consignment that are worth more than the Coburn book. She also has a first edition of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, which used to belong to Isaac Hayes. And she has hardback mysteries published between the wars, which Davis said never go out of style and continue to be highly collectible.

Southern authors are, not surprisingly, among Davis’ bestsellers, and signed books are always desirable — “well, usually desirable,” Davis reported. Surprisingly, though, books on the Civil War don’t sell as they once did, nor do signed first editions by contemporary authors, except, according to Davis, in the case of Donna Tartt.

“Modern first editions have gone down,” Davis said of recent trends. “There are so many now for sale on the internet, and the tide started turning around 2008. F. Scott Fitzgerald, however, does well, because young people still respond to him.”

Davis still responds to what she called “old classics” in addition to novels from the 1920s and ’30s, with their artful covers.

“The reason I got into this business is because I love books, and I love books published between the wars … the gorgeous book jackets of that era. First editions from that period, however, are hard to find, so for a dealer it’s catch-as-catch-can.”

Valuable collectibles are especially hard to track down in Memphis, according to Davis, who finds many of her books at local estate sales:

“Memphis is a challenging market for good books. When I started in this business 20 years ago, I thought I’d be going to sales and finding great books all the time. That’s not really how it works, and I think my fellow dealers would agree with me.”

Like many seasoned dealers too, Davis has mixed feelings about the internet, which she described as too often “a race to the bottom” when it comes to successfully selling a title, but she does use AbeBooks on occasion.

“I put older stuff that hasn’t sold on there,” Davis said. “And if it’s a book on consignment, I have a commitment to the seller to do my best to move the item. But that’s a last resort. I like the older way — where you have an ongoing, personal relationship with the potential buyer.”

So far, however, there have been no buyers for one of Davis’ favorite categories, which is included on the business card for Susan Davis Bookseller: “First Editions – Local History – Islands – General.” Islands?

“It’s kind of a subspecialty of mine — books about islands,” Davis said. “I just like islands. I’ve been to a few odd ones. I don’t think I’ve had any customers for my island books, but I keep buying them, hopeful.”

For more information on Susan Davis Bookseller or to schedule an appointment, call 362-1423. Or if you’re in Sewanee, Tennessee, July 18th-19th, stop by Davis’ table. She’ll be participating again this year in the Tennessee Antiquarian Book Fair at the Sewanee Inn, which will include more than two dozen vendors. The number of books Davis will have on hand and for sale, by her estimate: “400-ish.” And if an antiquarian book fair sounds stodgy to you, Davis understands, but she’ll have you know: “It’s amazingly jolly!”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

White is the New Black

Yo, white people. We need to talk. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of Pinot Grigio or sweet tea or whatever. We’ve got a problem and it’s going to take a while to get to the bottom of it. I’m talking about racism in this country.

Not your personal racism, of course. Or mine. We’re cool. And not just in that hackneyed, “I have black friends” way. Though, of course, we do. And we’ve taught our kids not to hate, not to discriminate on the basis of race. They all have black friends, too. More than we do, actually. They’re cool. Good, open-minded kids. We’re not racists. It’s not really our problem.

Yes, it is.

It’s not enough to declare ourselves and our families non-racism zones. We need to look at what’s going on outside our cocoons and take some responsibility for it. Too many black kids are still being born in situations where they have little to no chance of “pulling themselves up” by their bootstraps. They don’t even have boots. Their schools are substandard. Their food is junk. They’re trapped in a cycle of poverty and neglect and violence. It’s not because they’re lazy; it’s because they know nothing else.

Yeah, I know, you hear it said all the time: Blacks need to take responsibility for single-parent homes, “black-on-black” crime, poor schools, gangs. That’s self-defeating, divisive, and gets us no closer to solving the problem. The power to fix that situation lies with all middle- and upper-income folks, black, white, and brown — those who have escaped the ghetto and those who never had to worry about it. We need to work together to address the effects of institutional racism that still linger in the United States, and in the South, particularly.

And if we are going to insist black people take responsibility for “black problems,” we white people need to step up and take of our “white problems.” Problems like Dylann Storm Roof and the thousands of kids like him, and the thousands more adults who shape kids like Dylann. They’re out there — ignorant and angry, raised on a steady diet of racism and hatred, waving the Confederate battle flag like a cudgel, listening to wing-nut radio, devouring Nazi/racist web propaganda. We white people need to call that shit out. Now.

Getting rid of Confederate flags is a symbolic start, but more is needed. When we hear — or hear of — someone saying or writing such vile things, we need to pull off their hoods (real or cyber) and push them into the light. If your kids’ private school or your country club is not diverse, well, maybe it’s time to speak up and push for a change. If your kids don’t have interactions with other races, don’t be shocked when they’re caught on a cellphone video singing racist frat songs.

In a radio interview this week, President Obama said, “It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up, and that attitudes have changed. … What is also true is the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives … casts a long shadow and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it.”

No, we’re not, as events in Charleston last week made clear.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Anti-Confederate Sentiment in Nashville

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Spurred on by the unspeakable tragedy in South Carolina, in which a white supremacist youth gunned down nine members of a Bible class at an historic African-American church, momentum has built rapidly in Tennessee, as elsewhere, for the suppression of the old Confederate battle flag and other symbols of the Confederate era.

Tennessee Democrats lost little time in endorsing the removal of Confederate emblems in both official and unofficial places, in and out of the state itself. State Representative Larry Miller issued a press release that not only called for official repudiation of the flag, but also suggested the National Football League (which maintains a team, the Tennessee Titans, in Nashville) should cancel its forthcoming season, restoring it only when the battle flag has undergone a thorough nationwide de-sanctioning.

Somewhat less ambitious efforts in the backlash against Confederate imagery seem to be gaining a measure of bipartisan support in the state. A call by Nashville Democratic congressman Jim Cooper and state House of Representatives Democratic leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley for the removal of a bust of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee statehouse was quickly endorsed by state Republican chairman Ryan Haynes.

Sentiment was also reported building to provide tree cover on I-65 outside Nashville to shield a monument to Forrest from the view of passing motorists.

“If I were a legislator, I would vote to move it,” said Haynes of the Forrest bust in the Capitol, seemingly shifting from an earlier position in which he denounced a statement by his counterpart, state Democratic chair Mary Mancini of Nashville comparing the Charleston crime to the 1940 assassination of West Tennessee NAACP leader Elbert Williams. Haynes said Mancini, specifically, and Democrats, in general, were guilty of “seeking to raise money off of a tragedy. … trying to profit from a horrific situation.” It was a claim based apparently on the fact that a link at the end of Mancini’s statement led to a web page that included a fund-raising appeal.

Mancini denied any attempt to associate party fund-raising with the issues she had raised.

Meanwhile, Mancini was scheduled to be in Memphis for several days in the latter part of this week. She will participate in a press conference/rally held by local Democrats on Thursday to call for another special session of the General Assembly to resurrect Republican Governor Bill Haslam‘s Insure Tennessee plan for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

That event, which will be held under the shadow of what is considered an imminent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that could further cripple the ACA, was set for 11 a.m. at the office of state Representative Antonio Parkinson, 5146 Stage Rd.. Co-chairs for the event were Mancini, Parkinson, and state Senator Sara Kyle of Memphis. Other local and area Democratic legislators were expected to participate, as well.

Haslam has indicated he has no plans to call another special session, following the failure of one he called in February on behalf of Insure Tennessee. He is expected to renew efforts on behalf of his Medicaid expansion plan during the 2016 session of the General Assembly, however.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on King v. Burwell, a suit brought by opponents of the ACA that seeks to invalidate the federal-run health care exchanges in states — mainly Southern and Republican-dominated — that have declined to establish state-run exchanges to administer the program.

Proponents of the ACA fear that success for the suit would cause the immediate dropping from insurance rolls of millions of people, including thousands in Tennessee, who have acquired health care coverage via the federal-run exchanges.

Backers of the suit base their claim for invalidation of the federal exchanges on the fact that the framers of the ACA mentioned state exchanges in the wording of the act but neglected to specifically authorize the federal government as a default operator of exchanges. Participants in the framing of the 2009 act have said that omission was a mere oversight.

Mancini will also appear in Memphis on Saturday as part of her statewide Tennessee Democratic Party Listening Tour. The event, scheduled for 10 a.m. at the IBEW union hall, 1870 Madison, is expected to draw Democrats from Shelby, Fayette, and Tipton counties.

• Ninth District Democratic congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis (who also has been assertive in demands for repudiation of Confederate symbols) found himself in a bit of local party cross fire last week, after the appearance on his Facebook page of a statement lavishly praising John Marek, campaign manager of his last two reelection efforts and a freshly announced candidate for the District 5 seat on the city council.

The Facebook statement was interpreted by some as an outright endorsement of Marek’s bid, but the congressman, noting that he has other friends in the District 5 race — specifically Mary Wilder and Charles “Chooch” Pickard, both, like Marek, with pledges of support from Memphians considering themselves progressives — attempted to counter that impression.

Appearing Saturday at a fish fry event for another council candidate, Paul Shaffer, who is running for the Super District 9, Position 2 seat, Cohen said his praise of Marek should not be regarded as an endorsement as such. “I may do something close to the [July 16th] filing deadline,” Cohen said, “but I’m not endorsing as of yet.”

Meanwhile, Wilder was the beneficiary of a campaign fund-raiser last week at the home of George and Nicole Treadwell; Pickard had one scheduled for Tuesday of this week at the Lincoln American Tower on North Main; and Marek has one set for this Saturday at Ciao Bella on Erin Drive.  

• Mayoral candidate Jim Strickland will be the beneficiary of a meet-and-greet affair next Thursday by African-American supporters of his candidacy at the Zebra Lounge on Trimble Place. This fresh bid for backing among black voters is in the immediate aftermath of his endorsement earlier this month by long-time friend Sidney Chism, a political broker with roots in the African-American community.

In response to the Chism endorsement of Strickland, made at Chism’s annual political picnic, Mayor A C Wharton minimized both the endorsement and  Strickland’s chances and expressed confidence in his own victory in remarks quoted by the Tri-State Defender.

• After a Shelby County Commission meeting on Monday that was one of the most stressful in the history of Shelby County government, the commission endorsed a budget plan favored by Republican County Mayor Mark Luttrell that would dispose of a $6 million surplus without gratifying a demand by a GOP minority on the commission for a one-cent decrease in the current county property tax rate of $4.37.

The absence on Monday of several key commissioners caused the tax rate vote to fall one vote short of the seven votes needed for final approval, but it seemed inevitable that the rate would be approved ultimately by the commission on a third and final reading. 

A spirited resistance to both the tax rate and the provisional budget allocations was led by Republican Commissioners Heidi Shafer and Terry Roland, but a tacit alliance between the county administration and a predominantly Democratic coalition that included GOP member Steve Basar doomed that effort to failure.

Final approval of a budget resolution on second reading did not occur, however, until several hair-raising moments had occurred, including a temporary walkout by three Republicans and Democraic chairman Justin Ford (a de facto GOP ally) that threatened to cause the meeting the be aborted for lack of a quorum.

That outcome would have put to the test a warning from county financial officer Mike Swift that failure to resolve the budget issue on Monday might cause a shut-down of Shelby County government and a defaulting of employee paychecks. Swift’s statement was based on a ruling by County Attorney Ross Dyer. 

Democrat Eddie Jones‘ late appearance restored a quorum, however, and the moment passed.

Democratic Commissioner Van Turner ultimately presented a successful budget resolution, reconciling versions proposed by Basar and the administration, omitting a tax decrease and raising the level of increases for several county divisions, notably one by the Sheriff’s Department that had been hotly disputed by Republican commissioners.

Categories
Music Music Features

The New King of Memphis

CREDIT: Cole Wheeler

Yo Gotti gave local hip-hop fans the concert they deserved this past Sunday night at his annual birthday celebration. Known for guest appearances and multiple surprises, Yo Gotti and Friends Birthday Bash at Mud Island Amphitheater didn’t disappoint, with Nicki Minaj, Meek Mill, O.T. Genasis, Dej Loaf, Shy Glizzy, Snootie Wild, Wave Chappelle, Zed Zilla, and Monica making guest appearances, in addition to DJ Paul and La Chat of Da Mafia 6ix joining forces with Yo Gotti on stage for the first time. Those following the Memphis rap game know that DJ Paul and Yo Gotti were once considered enemies, with Yo Gotti calling out Three 6 Mafia on his smash hit “That’s What’s Up” from the 2006 album Back 2 Da Basics. All beef seemed to be squashed when DJ Paul appeared on stage to do the classic Three 6 Mafia club jam “Who Run It,” alongside Yo Gotti, as confetti shot out of cannons and fireworks exploded over the Mississippi River. Later, Yo Gotti called the on-stage performance “a victory for the whole city,” and residents of every section of Memphis cheered loudly in appreciation of the unity the performance symbolized between two of the biggest rappers the city has ever produced.

Cole Wheeler

DJ Paul

When asked about holding the event at Mud Island, Yo Gotti (whose real name is Mario Mims,) said that a much larger venue was mandatory for this year’s bash.

“We’ve done the Orpheum and the Cannon Center, and we sold them out so quick that I knew I had to go somewhere bigger,” Mims said.

“I felt like there were thousands of people who were getting left out, and if you looked around tonight, you saw that we were top-to-bottom, and this place is twice as big as the other venues.”

The rapper also acknowledged that he’s come a long way since his days of playing all-ages clubs and places like the Plush Club.

“When I was coming up, I just wanted to perform anywhere. When I first heard my music in Denim & Diamonds, I was really excited about it,” Mims said.

“The first time I ever performed at Cactus Jacks or The Premier was very special to me. I have always loved to get on the stage. It seems like Memphis rappers have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get some recognition, but if you keep grinding, it will happen for you.”

Lil Boosie received one of the strongest receptions of the night (along with Monica), and after a few songs, Yo Gotti (who calls himself the King of Memphis), joked that Memphis might actually belong to Louisiana-based Lil Boosie. Other highlights included O.T. Genasis doing his mega-hit “CoCo,” Monica’s amazing vocals, and Nicki Minaj appearing on stage seemingly only to take selfies and wave to her fans, who were all collectively losing their minds. Backstage at Mud Island, Cîroc and Patrón seemed to be the drink of choice, along with enough blunt smoke to choke Snoop Dogg. Each rapper had an extensive entourage, who seemed to each have their own separate mini-entourages as well.

Lil Boosie might have had the biggest entourage of them all, with 30 or so people pouring out of a tiny dressing room before joining him on stage for multiple songs. Behind the stage sat Yo Gotti’s white Lamborghini, though sadly it did not become a part of his performance in the same way it did at his Cannon Center Birthday Bash the year before. When asked how he will manage to top this year’s festivities, Mims said he’s already started planning.

“Im just going to keep grinding, keep trying to make it bigger than it was the year before. We don’t have Summer Jam in Memphis anymore, so this is the new Summer Jam.”

Cole Wheeler

Dej Loaf

Writers Notebook:

• O.T. Genasis had the best style of the evening, rocking a Day-Glo motorcycle jacket and at least three seriously impressive gold chains.

• Rappers really do drink as much Patrón as they say they do.

•Monica might have reached the peak of her career in the ’90s with hits like “The Boy is Mine” and “For You I Will,” but her vocal performance Saturday night was spine-tingling. She’s also sold over 10 million records, so there’s that, too.

•Yo Gotti’s hype men deserve a bonus for keeping the crowd thoroughly crunk throughout the evening, as they rarely stopped moving during the show’s five-hour duration.

• After the show, Nicki Minaj went to Blues City Cafe to pick up a to-go order, and was immediately swarmed by fans. Minaj handled the fanfare with ease, taking selfies with her fans and posing for multiple photos before getting back in her SUV.

• Memphis showed that it could hang with the big dogs in terms of getting premier hip-hop talent, which is amazing for our city’s entertainment industry. Don’t be surprised if Yo Gotti’s next birthday bash is in the FedExForum, or better yet, the Mid-South Coliseum.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Future of Energy

It is an unfortunate fact that low-income and minority Americans are more likely to live near power plants. Communities living in such close proximity also bear the brunt of the negative health impacts caused by the pollution spewed from these power plants. Due to these historic disproportional impacts, it is imperative that we ensure that those who have been harmed by power plant pollution see the benefits of our nation’s transition to a clean energy economy.

The Clean Power Plan, part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, will be our nation’s first comprehensive regulation aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Coal plants emit 77 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from our nation’s power sector, as well as millions of tons of hazardous air pollutants that contribute to the formation of harmful ground-level ozone. Ground-level ozone and hazardous air pollutants are particularly dangerous for vulnerable populations, like children and the elderly.

Additionally, ground-level ozone increases smog, which contributes to respiratory illnesses such as asthma and can cause reduced lung function, particularly for adults who spend more time outdoors. Carbon dioxide emissions contribute to the ever-growing threat of climate change, which is predicted to impact historically disadvantaged communities more severely than others due to increases in extreme weather and more extreme heat. 

The Clean Power Plan will not only reduce carbon dioxide and the accompanying suite of harmful air pollutants emitted by coal plants, but it will also spur the development of clean energy resources such as solar and wind and increase energy efficiency.

By increasing renewable energy resources, we will create much-needed jobs in the clean energy sector. According to national business leaders, more than 18,000 jobs were announced in the clean energy sector in the third quarter of 2014 alone. A study released by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that if the Clean Power Plan is enacted, 274,000 jobs related to energy efficiency will be created over the next five years.

One important aspect of jobs in the clean energy sector is that many are accessible to those without advanced degrees and are generally higher-paying jobs compared to other jobs attainable to those with similar education backgrounds. The typical wage for someone employed in a clean energy industry — about $44,000 — is 13 percent higher than the typical wage earned by Americans. Perhaps most important, these jobs will be created at the local level and cannot be exported.

This clean energy revolution can and should benefit low-income communities by increasing the availability of higher-paying jobs and providing these communities access to low-cost, safe, and clean energy resources. Energy efficiency programs can reduce a family’s energy bills in both the short- and long-term. Experience has shown that well-designed and adequately funded energy efficiency programs can trim utility bills and limit exposure to pollution by reducing reliance on traditional forms of energy such as coal plants.

Increased access to funding for energy efficiency improvements is especially important for limited-income households, which spend disproportionately higher amounts of their monthly income on electric bills and often live in homes or apartments lacking proper insulation with old, inefficient appliances.

Last month, Vanderbilt University Law School and Medical Center hosted a two-day forum on the Clean Power Plan. This forum allowed doctors, lawyers, scholars, business leaders, and policymakers an opportunity to discuss how we can work to protect our state and citizens from the threats of climate change while benefiting from the positive impacts of a transition to a clean energy economy.

For new jobs, energy savings, health benefits, and basic economic fairness, we should invest in clean energy resources in order to level the playing field for disadvantaged communities. I stand ready to work with the Tennessee Valley Authority, leaders in the energy industry, and my colleagues in Congress to make this commitment a reality.

We can and must do more to focus on the fair distribution of both the benefits and the burdens related to how we produce and consume energy.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Put That Flag Away

It is a rather large irony — made larger in the course of recent tragic events — that the two most iconic elements of nostaligia for (excuse us, “homage to”) the Confederacy are not what they are usually taken to be. The rousing

song “Dixie” became an anthem of the Old South only after hostilities had ceased, mainly because of its sentimental lyrics and on account of a bounce and vigor that proved an irresistible pick-me-up for a defeated people. The song was actually originated and first performed — get this — as a bridge tune in a minstrel show performed in the North in support of the Union war effort. True.

Something similar is true of the well-known flag with 13 bright stars arranged in a crossed-X pattern, the ubiquitous emblem that people refer to as the “Confederfate flag” and that significantly motivated the racist fanatic Dylann Storm Roof to murder nine gentle black people who had welcomed him into their Bible study group in a Charleston, South Carolina church.

The official flag of the Confederate States of America was a far dowdier affair, a kind of knockoff of the established Stars and Stripes of the federal Union. It had a ring of 13 stars in one corner and three bold bars — a white one flanked by two red ones filling out the rest of the design. The “white” part of that and subsequent emblems created for the Confederacy by William T. Thompson, the designer of several of them, was, in Thompson’s words, to illustrate “the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race,” and was meant to be “significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization.”

The crossed-X version that many call the “Confederate flag” was actually employed, in two different but similar forms: as the battle flag of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and as the Confederate Navy Jack.

Conspicuously, neither variant employs Thompson’s blatantly racist display of white. Both of those emblems accompanied men involved in a conflict that would cost 600,000 lives on both sides of the battle line, and both were retired when that war was over, only to be revived for nostalgic — and, increasingly, commercial — reasons.

Though innocent of overt racism in its own right, that flag has become the symbol of that which well-meaning people call Confederate “heritage” and, as such is stained with blood and hatred. Anyone wanting to know the actual heritage of the Confederacy should merely read the published manifestoes of the Southern states at the time of their secession. They are redolent with white supremacy, couched in terms so flagrant and impassioned as to make the likes of the aforementioned William T. Thompson blush, and they are available to be read, in all their outrageousness, by anyone who cares to Google them.

As for that Confederate battle flag, which is now the subject of so much animus, it should be taken down from any official place and confined to a museum. That horrific war and the despicable ideology that caused it are over.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Evergreen Presbyterian Says Goodbye to Sanctuary

CREDIT: Alaina Getzenberg

After 64 years, Evergreen Presbyterian Church finally said goodbye to its sanctuary at 613 University Street.

The church sold its facilities to Rhodes College, which is located across the street from the church, two years ago, but the congregation held its last service there on Sunday, June 21st.

The property will add about 9.7 acres to the Rhodes campus. It includes a 1,000-seat sanctuary, a two-story education building, a gymnasium, and a variety of sports equipment. The college bought the facilities and land for $2.6 million.

Part of the reason for the sale was the church’s decrease in membership, making the space larger than necessary for the congregation of about 160 people. In 1950, when the building was erected, the church had about 1,400 congregants.

Alaina Getzenberg

University Street Sanctuary

The church has been able to phase out of the space in the past two years due to an agreement with Rhodes that allowed them to remain there while the college updated its master plan to include the new space.

Under the leadership of Reverend Lucy Waechter Webb, a Rhodes alumni who has been part of the church for nine months, Evergreen has been using the time to explore new locations. Over the past five months, they visited six locations, including storefronts and space in other churches.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to go and do a new thing. Church in our world is dramatically shifting and that’s exciting to me,” Waechter Webb said. “You also can’t make those changes unless you take some really bold steps, so Evergreen’s decision to sell the building was a sign to me that it was a community ready for change and ready to embrace the next thing.”

At Evergreen’s last service, the congregation and others walked around the grounds and said prayers to bless the property’s future uses, and then the final worship service was held in the sanctuary.

To wrap up the Father’s Day afternoon service, a lunch and organ concert were held. Evergreen’s 44-rank Reuter organ has been a part of the church for all of its 64 years. The concert highlighted its history with 10 musicians playing a diverse array of pieces.

The church will hold services this coming Sunday and for the foreseeable future at the Beethoven Club, 263 South McLean Boulevard, a historic performance venue that the churchgoers decided was an inspirational space that left them hopeful for the future, Waechter Webb said.

Rhodes has not disclosed detailed plans for their new space, although the music program will have a piece of it, including the historic organ. The relationship between Evergreen and Rhodes will continue. If the church ever decides to come back to the area, Rhodes has offered it an indefinite proposal to worship at the college.

While the future is largely unknown for Evergreen Church, all eyes are on the road ahead, according to Waechter Webb.

“We are walking out into the unknown. We are not sure exactly what is next, but we trust that as we do, there will be clarity that comes for us as a church,” said Waechter Webb. “There is already just tons of imagination and ideas for partners in this city. How can we make a difference in a particular way in this city? That’s the journey we are setting out on and the exploration ahead.”

Categories
News News Feature

Committed to Lies

People in search of comfort may turn to scripture after last week’s massacre of nine black churchgoers by a lone white gunman in Charleston, South Carolina. I am drawn to John 8:32, in which Jesus tells his disciples: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Emancipation by veracity is a beautiful, if elusive, concept. It puts freedom within anyone’s reach. But this nation is committed to lies, never more so than when it comes to racism.

Confessed killer Dylann Roof explained his racist motivations in an online manifesto. In it, he calls black people violent and inferior. He says the authors of slave narratives spoke highly of the institution. He writes that integration sent white people running to the suburbs in search of whiter schools and fewer minorities.

If racism is a continuum, Roof is at the far right end. America’s systems and institutions — all of them — are not as far to the left as we tell ourselves. Typing that — being honest — fills me with anxiety. To state unflinchingly, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did, that America is racist is to open yourself up to attack.

The (direct or indirect) beneficiaries of racist systems have a powerful incentive to be dishonest. So they lie and insist that racism doesn’t exist. How do they lie? Let’s count just a few of the ways.

They lie when they refuse to unflinchingly describe what happened.

This was not an attack on Christianity. It was a calculated terrorist attack on black parishioners at Emanuel A.M.E. Church by a white racist young man. Do not blather about mental illness or speculate that the killer was on drugs. Do not paint him as an outlier. Do not disconnect this racism and this violence from the less graphic but still racist violence of segregated neighborhoods, hyper-policed communities, needless voting restrictions, and attacks on public-sector jobs.

But instead of candor, we get obfuscation, as offered by South Carolina’s Governor Nikki Haley during a press conference last week. “We’ve got some grieving too. And we’ve got some pain we have to go through,” she said, through tears.

Conveniently, the Republican did not elaborate. Is it the pain of grief? Or is it African Americans’ collective pain of political disenfranchisement, economic exclusion, and mass incarceration, all of which are rooted in racism?

They lie when they ignore the echoes.

According to a survivor, Roof said: “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.”

Said Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul in April, when announcing his campaign: “We have come to take our country back.”

Slightly milder iterations of Roof’s racism are as close as the worst of conservative talk radio, where fears of a colored menace — or perhaps a rebellion like that planned in 1822 by Emanuel A.M.E. founder and former slave Denmark Vesey — loom large.

Similar rhetoric pours from the mouths of right-wing politicians. And it is parroted by too many conservative voters, many who would insist they are not racist because they don’t use the n-word and have a black friend.

Roof wrote in his manifesto: “The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens.” The Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group, is a sponsor of “Political Cesspool,” which airs on Memphis radio.

We lie when we say never again.

I am unmoved by interracial unity marches and vigils and the unsatisfying, fleeting displays of kumbaya that follow such tragedies. Arguments over removing the Confederate flag from its place of honor miss the point. The symbols hurt, but the spirit that upholds those symbols kills. And because there is no appetite for exorcism, the demon of racism remains.

The lies dishonor the dead.

They are Susie Jackson, 87; Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; Rev. DePayne Doctor, 49; Ethel Lance, 70; Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Myra Thompson, 59; and state Senator Clementa Pinckney, 41, a pastor of Mother Emanuel. But we will not remember their names, just as we do not remember the names of the four black girls bombed to death in 1963 in a Birmingham church by white racists.

I feel like I can have hope or honesty, but not both. The truth is that this massacre could lead America to atone for racism. In the truth lies liberation that could unshackle African Americans from the nation’s bottom rungs. But we can’t handle the truth.

We prefer to lie.