words by charles brooks
A few months back, two Black state representatives, Rep. Justin Jones, (D-Nashville), and Rep. Justin Pearson, (D-Memphis) protested gun violence in Nashville, and was briefly expelled from Tennessee’s House of Representatives. They did return to office days later but they were forced to win “special” elections, months later to serve out their original terms.
Their brief expulsion drew nationwide attention to Tennessee’s racial and partisan politics, amplifying the ongoing tensions between Black Democrats and White Republicans there. The brief expulsion triggered a very public display of party loyalty amongst Black Democrats that quickly turned this show of racial politics into a political spectacle.
The bright lights and camera flashes surrounding this spectacle managed to dim attention or urgency around the Republican supermajority in Tennessee’s state legislature that enabled the expulsion. Taking advantage of the low hanging fruit in electoral politics – race and partisan politics, there was a massive marketing campaign catapulting the “Justin’s” into the limelight.