The Back-Assward Justifications of Republican Racism

The Jeremy Faison Interview on Long Play

I listen to a fair number of political podcasts. Even though I’m a Generation Jones, I understand modern social media — Okay, I don’t get Instagram. Why does it keep showing me commercials and other influencers when I only want to see what my “friends” are doing? I don’t get that platform — so, I’m mixing it up with the podcasts and streaming on Twitch and all the social medias.

I heard a brief interview with Tennessee State Representative, Jeremy Faison, on Tennessee: A Single Party State, which is on the short series, Long Play about the run up to the 2026 mid-terms in six Southern states on Crooked Media. Honestly, it was a bit light weight. More rah rah rah, Democrats than any kind of insightful analysis. But, they interviewed this retiring Republican representative because they felt like they had to talk to a Tennessee Republican, and he was the only one who would.

That’s about the caliber of the podcast, right there: We have to talk to a Republican, and this goober is the only one who will, so let’s let him speak past us on his racism while barely pushing back.

Just consider the following excerpts from the interview Jennifer Palmieri of him. The transcription is by me, so any emphasis and errors are mine. Extend a little grace for a full-time citizen, part-time blogger maintaining his vanity blog.

I’m a Christian!

When asked why he decided to retire after sixteen years in the state legislature: “Republicans introduced a bill that would allow schools to remove children who are here with parents illegally. I’m Christian! So, like I believe all these people are made in the image of god. That bill didn’t pass — thank goodness — but that kind of bill is where the mainstream GOP is at.”

This response shows what he thinks of himself and how his Christian godliness exerts itself. Read that as I’m good, so everything I do is good. He wasn’t going to harm children for the sins of their parents. Good for him, I guess. Except those children are being harmed for the ethnicity of their parents by his party and he don’t seem to give a good goddamn other than trying to keep them in the shitty conservative racism indoctrinating school system. I’m sure those kids will thank him after their parents are deported and they matriculate high school since they now know their parents were criminals — the worst of the worst — and Faison “saved” them from their evil Democratic ways.

Rising and Falling on Who They Are

Palmieri asked him about the Calais decision and the racist gerrymandering of Tennessee, only she didn’t accuse him or the Republican Party of being racist. It led to Faison expounding at length on what he thinks racism is and how it manifests itself.

FAISON: “I always want to remind people, plenty of African Americans get elected all across America, and they don’t have a super minority-majority district to get elected. It’s racist at its core to say because you’re this, then you get this. I just reject that as a daddy of a bi-racial child, me as a father-in-law of a Black man. They rise and fall on who they are, not on the color they are.”

Where in America, other than in the lies Faison and his fellow neo-Confederate slavers tell themselves, is any Black person allowed to “rise and fall on who they are, not on the color they are”? Certainly, not Tennessee (State motto: Birth place of the Klan, y’all!). Majority-minority districts are designed to allow Black candidates to rise and fall on who they are rather than on the color of their skin.

Majority-Minority Districts is Racism Right There

Palmieri went on to ask him about dividing Memphis up into three predominately white districts.

FAISON: “Because it benefitted our party, that’s why you do that. I mean, you know the answer to that. [Unintelligible cross talk] You did it in your party.”

PALMIERI: “You may want to remove race from voting, but you all took the one predominately Black district in the predominately Black city in Tennessee and broke it up into three pieces and the chance that a Black person can win are very low now.”

FAISON: “Now, I see… I think that’s racist what you just said.”

PALMIERI: “I’m looking at records… I’m looking at how people, at what the outcomes are and I just worry about it.”

I just worry about it. Ooh, sick burn, Palmieri. There’s no coming back from that indictment of racist gerrymandering. You didn’t leave him a leg to stand on.

FAISON: “But what you’re saying says, nobody can get elected in Memphis if they’re Black. That’s judging them by the color of their skin, Jennifer [Palmieri], that’s not looking at the content of who they are or their character.”

What? What? How is proclaiming that the white voters in the rural areas around Memphis are so racist that they won’t ever vote for a Black person and realizing that the mixture of rural white voters to urban Black voters means that no Black person can win a free and fair election, judging the Black candidates by the color of their skin?

Palmieri, and all of the other non-racist observers, are judging the white voters by the history of their votes and actions and predicting their future votes and actions. That’s not racism. That’s common sense.

The Back-Asswards Racist Reasoning of Republicans

By deliberately misconstruing the interpretation of what racist gerrymandering is, by accusing the liberals of being racist is (a) first class gaslighting and (b) obfuscating the blatant racism motivating the gerrymander. It’s ridiculous. It would be laughable if so many white people didn’t accept it as true, and I don’t mean the blatantly racist white Evangelical white supremacist, either, I mean the racially anxious college educated urban white voter who locks their car doors if a Black man is standing on the corner when they drive by and wonders what a Black person is doing in their neighborhood.

The entire goal of that argument is to get you to defend yourself from accusations of racism and not point out that back-assward logic that it used on you.

But did Palmieri point that out to his face or after they left his stupid analysis on their broadcast? No, they just oh-welled it and moved on to the next thing.

We’ve got neo slavers — you know they would if they could — pretending that racism doesn’t exist and these soft liberals offering us the analysis and insight equivalent of Wonder bread.

We know they are modern-day Confederate slavers because they keep Jim Crowing Black people every chance they get and social engineering the permission structure for open LEGAL racial discrimination. They are essentially arguing that it is a political gerrymander because Black people vote Democratic. If a BLACK Republican candidate would run, they might could get elected, but, Blacks insist on running as Democrats, so, of course, we can’t let them win.

The Milquetoast Response of Democrats

The white bread milquetoast “I just worry about it” response of white Democrats to the naked proud Republican racism is comes from the same place as white people chickening out on confronting their inner racist. It explains why white suburban middle class votes are continually seduced into voting Republican by racist dog whistling. That the dog whistles have become the equivalent of shouting the n-word from the rooftop of Republican local headquarters is the boiling a frog effect.

Even if we vote them out of office in 2026 and 2028, the neo-Confederates have successfully normalized their racism… again! And, Palmieri’s complete lack of utter disdain when she seeks it out and confronts only helps the normalization creep on up on us.

Image Attribution

This image was found on World History Encyclopedia and has a Creative Commons license.