2 Black Tennessee Democrats expelled from state house

Source: Seth Herald / Getty

Politricks as usual.

Yesterday was a historically ugly day for the state of Tennessee, state that has had a LOT of historically ugly days, especially recently. Two Black elected officials, Rep. Justin Johnson and Rep. Justin Pearson were expelled from the state house by their Republican colleagues for leading a protest against gun violence.

Source: Seth Herald / Getty

Following the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Johnson, Pearson, and another Democrat Rep. Gloria Johnson, a white woman, lead a demonstration on the house floor calling for gun control laws to be passed. To be fair, it was a raucous display but no violence was incited, no violence was enacted, and trio made their position clear with a bit of political theater. No harm, no foul.

However, salty house Republicans saw fit to exact revenge on their political opponents with some par-for-the-course bigotry. According to The Tennessean, both Johnson and Pearson were officially expelled from their seats with a vote of 69-26. Rep. Gloria Johnson, however, was not expelled, we know why but she didn’t bite her tongue when asked why she thought she was spared expulsion.

Via CNN:

“I am a 60-year-old White woman, and they are two young Black men,” Johnson said. She added that Pearson and Jones were questioned in a “demeaning way” by lawmakers before their expulsion.

For context, this is only the fourth time since the Civil War that house members have expelled a colleague. However, Rep. Justin Johnson makes it very clear that house Republicans are more than happy to welcome all sorts of deplorable members to keep their elected seats…

Even POTUS #44 Barack Obama weighed in on the political punishment that Republicans enacted.

These people have no idea what kinda pandora’s box that they’ve opened not only for precedent-setting but for future elections where young voters are not apt to forget what took place yesterday.