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Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, is an attorney, a family business owner and a board member of the National Civil Rights Museum. She represents District 29 in the Tennessee Senate.
As a Black teenager growing up in Memphis, I was always perplexed, and later offended, that the city of Memphis committed our tax dollars to public memorials honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest – a brutal enslaver who tortured and sold people like my ancestors.
His legacy of treason against the United States and terrorism against Black Americans as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan hardly seemed worthy of celebration.
Mignon Francois owes it all to her grandmother.
Thirteen years ago, Francois couldn t even bake cupcakes using a store-bought kit. But thanks to countless patient phone calls during which her grandmother gave helpful advice like, just add flour until it feels right she s developed recipes at The Cupcake Collection that have won national honors.
More importantly, Mignon said, she s part of the first generation of Black business owners with full access to business opportunities. We don t have a long history or a long line of having the opportunity to have business ownership, Mignon said. Entrepreneurship is, to me, a wonderful opportunity to experience true freedom.
State s critical race theory ban diminishes the Black experience LeBron Hill, Nashville Tennessean
Greetings, readers:
This is Tennessean Opinion Columnist LeBron Hill. Welcome to the first edition of the Black Tennessee Voices Newsletter.
On Wednesday, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law that bans critical race theory which acknowledges that systemic racism is embedded in our American society from being taught in schools.
The law was passed as lawmakers from across the state gave their reasoning to vote in favor of the bill. Most notably, State Rep. Justin Lafferty, R-Knoxville, falsely claimed that the Three-Fifths Compromise, an 18th century law which acknowledges three-fifths of an enslaved African American as a person, was created to end slavery.
This should not be a surprise, for critical race theory is a product of critical theory. developed by the Frankfurt School, critical theory is “essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture,” including Christianity, morality, tradition, capitalism, and the family.
New bill would nationalize civics standards
Why focus on removing Christianity from American society? Why target the nuclear family – the key to success and upward mobility?
Italian communist Antonio Gramsci observed that Christianity and a vibrant middle class ensure that the seeds of communism fall on sandy and rocky soil. To de-Christianize the West, Gramsci argued that Marxists must begin a “long march through the institutions” of the West. Gramsci died in the 1930s, but his march lived on and has led us straight to Tennessee’s K-12 classrooms