By Rosetta Miller-Perry This week the nation and the world have had a chance to see both the best and worse of America in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings regarding President Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Jackson handled herself with extreme dignity, responding to often stupid, KKK racist irrelevant and insulting questions with detailed, thoughtful responses, and remaining respectful to Senators and Congressmen often cutting her off in mid-answer, interrupting or refusing to let her complete responses, and just behaving with the standard contempt and animus they have for Black people in general, and…
Author: Rosetta Miller Perry
By Rosetta Miller Perry In today’s right-wing media universe, racist attacks against Vice-President Kamala Harris are a regular occurrence. If you believe the rhetoric of such outlets as the New York Post, the Vice President at best is unable to properly communicate complex issues to the public, a fancy way of saying she’s dumb. Keep in mind they are maligning a woman who’s not only a graduate of Howard and the University of California, Hastings College of the law, but a former state attorney general and US senator. But many of the same people who shamelessly excuse every idiotic comment…
By Rosetta Miller Perry It didn’t take long for the Republican Party to once again show itself an enemy of Black progress and opportunity. Although President Biden announced while he was running for President that if elected he would do so once an opening emerged, as soon as he announced plans to nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the court right-wing reactionaries, among them Tennessee’s Senator Marsha Blackburn, began raising their voices in opposition. According to Senator Blackburn the timing is wrong due to the Russian invasion of Urkaine. In Blackburn’s words, “Once again, Biden is putting the demands of the…
By Rosetta Miller-Perry The racist Republican Party is now openly and consistently doing everything it can to derail progress for Black Americans, both statewide and nationally. Whether it’s dividing Nashville into small parts to dilute Black voting access and power, or openly opposing President Biden’s plans to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, the GOP currently is to racist to even try to hide its efforts at restricting opportunity for African Americans at the ballot box and in the courts. Fortunately, there are plenty of people ready to back the President as he fulfills a campaign promise to…
By Rosetta Miller-Perry Throughout the history of oppressed people in America, and particularly Blacks, there has always been those within our population who cooperate and assist the evil forces of systemic racism. Every slave revolt that failed, whether it was Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey or Nat Turner, was unexecuted, in large part because there were slave snitchers informing their masters about the plan. Fast forward centuries to the present, we still have collaborators who hate being Black so much they are willing to help undermine others, while serving as apologists and mouthpieces for white injustice. The most recent collaborator is Kenny Collins, the police chief of…
By Rosetta Miller-Perry Kentucky senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been backing away from support for Civil Rights and Voting Rights for decades. So it was no surprise last week when he remarked “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” For McConnell and the 21st century Republican Party, Blacks aren’t their definitions of Americans because they don’t suck up to Donald Trump, and don’t support their backwards political agenda. McConnell claimed he misspoke, then retreated into what’s become today the standard right-wing defense whenever they get called out about making racist and…
Darrell Freeman Speaks Truth to Power By Rosetta Miller Perry NASHVILLE, TN — The Tennessee Tribune has always celebrated and championed people of courage, those willing to speak truth to power, no matter the situation or individuals involved. That’s why we’ve selected entrepreneur Darrell Freeman our Man of the Year for 2021. Freeman dared to expose hypocrisy and challenge powerful people to do more than pay lip service to issues of diversity and inclusion. He did that during an address at Middle Tennessee State University’s Dec. 8 board of trustees meeting. The board has supposedly been studying and debating for…
By Rosetta Miller-Perry and Wanda Miller-Benson Public service and filling a void in the community service were the reasons behind the creation of the Tennessee Tribune three decades ago, and they are the motivation behind the establishment of the Tribune Stores at the BNA airport. We extensively studied developments occurring in Nashville, and examined both positive and negative aspects of those things being cited as reasons for Nashville’s designation as an “it city.” We felt it vitally important that the ongoing changes that we saw also reflect the city’s growing diversity, and the products and commerce that came from these…
By Rosetta Miller Perry There are very disturbing reports out now about Vice President Kamala Harris and the lack of support she’s allegedly receiving from President Biden. If these are true, they are not good indicators of Biden’s faith in her, or his willingness to defend her against many attacks that are both excessive and unwarranted. They also represent yet another time when Biden’s rhetoric on race doesn’t match his actions. While some of the accounts from right-wing media like the New York Post might not be totally complete or accurate, it’s something else altogether when CNN presents a detailed…
By Rosetta Miller-Perry HBCU football was once the glamour sport in Black communities. especially in the South. For decades many of this nation’s finest football players were headlining at Grambling State, Florida A&M and Tennessee State. The lily-white schools in the SEC, SWC and ACC ignored them, but the NFL didn’t, and many of these players would go on to be pro football stars. But then the era of integration saw these predominantly white institutions now welcoming Black stars into their ranks, something that decimated the ranks of HBCUs., However over the past two seasons, there’s been a new development…