The Funny Papers

Michael de Adder, Nick Anderson, Darrin Bell, Nate Beeler, RJ Matson, Patrick Chappette, Jack Ohman, Clay Bennett, John Deering

John Lewis: His Final Words

Shortly before he passed, John Lewis wrote this essay, and asked that it be published on the day of his funeral:

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, though decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

His march goes on ….

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Don't Forget John Lewis Also Stood For LGBTQ+ Equality

While heading to the Georgia State Capitol, where his body would lie in state, the funeral procession carrying the body of John Lewis made several quick, but poignant stops.

My favorite was when the hearse stopped in the intersection of 10th Street and Piedmont and sat surrounded on four sides by the LGBTQ Pride flag crosswalks as those gathered to pay tribute to Lewis’s allyship with our community and his vocal support of LGBTQ rights throughout his political career.

John Lewis was one of the first Democrats, and first African American, to officially support same-sex marriage when he came out in favor of equality over twenty years ago; fifteen years before the Supreme Court legalized the unions. Lewis lobbied for the Human Rights Campaign during the ’90s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ era, and was one of two Georgia lawmakers who refused to sign the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Lewis also stood out against Georgia’s ban on gay adoption.

He compared the struggle for the equal treatment of LGBTQ people to his work on the front lines of the civil rights movement in an October 2003 Boston Globe editorial:

“We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry. Some say let’s choose another route and give gay folks some legal rights but call it something other than marriage. We have been down that road before in this country. Separate is not equal. The rights to liberty and happiness belong to each of us and on the same terms, without regard to either skin color or sexual orientation. Some say they are uncomfortable with the thought of gays and lesbians marrying. But our rights as Americans do not depend on the approval of others. Our rights depend on us being Americans.”

Remember; John Lewis thought equality belonged to everyone in this country, regardless of race, creed, color or sexual orientation of gender identity, and he was fighting our battle long before a lot of us even got here.

RIP.

h/t Towleroad

ISBL Asshat of the Week: Will Dismukes

Down there in Alabama, the Democratic Party, and some in the GOP, are calling for state Representative Will Dismukes to step down after he posted on social media that he had a “great time” honoring Confederate Army General and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest over the weekend.

The very weekend John Lewis was being honored for his decades of service and his fight for Civil Rights following his death last week.

Dismukes posted on Facebook that he had a “great time” celebrating a Klan Leader’s birthday and said he was honored to give the invocation for the festivities:

“Always a great time and some sure good enough eating!!”

Dismukes is a chaplain for the Prattville Dragoons, a chapter of the Sons of the Confederacy whose Mission Statement reads:

“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish.”

Dismukes took the post down by Monday and said that the photo and posting “was in no way glorifying the Klan or disrespecting” John Lewis” who was being celebrated in Alabama over the weekend.

Huh; two celebrations you can attend in Alabama as a representative of the people. One is the celebration of the birthday of a Klan leader and the other is a memorial to the life of a Civil Rights activist.

And Dismukes chose to celebrate a racist which makes him the ISBL Asshat of the Week.

Tuesday Thought #2

I Didn't Say It ...

Barack Obama, former president, on the riots and protests:

“As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change. Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.

First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.

On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause.

I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back.

So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.”

This is how a President responds.

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Joe Biden, on the murder of George Floyd, the riots, and America:

“I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain. I’ll do my job and I’ll take responsibility — I won’t blame others. … Is this what we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren — fear, anger, finger-pointing, rather than the pursuit of happiness? Incompetence and anxiety, self-absorption, selfishness? Or do we want to be the America we know we can be, the America we know in our hearts we could be and should be?”

And this is how a President responds. He isn’t sending out the dogs or tear gas or the army; he’s sending out hope.

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Terence Floyd, brother of George Floyd, calling on the violence to end, and the protests to be peaceful:

“I do feel like it’s overshadowing what’s going on. Because like I said, [George] was about peace. He was about unity. But the things that [are] transpiring now, they may call it unity, but it’s destructive unity. It’s not what he was about. That’s not what my brother was about. It’s okay to be angry, but channel your anger to do something positive, or make a change another way. Because we’ve been down this road already. We’ve been down this road already. He would want us to seek justice the way we’re trying to do. But channel it another way. The anger, damaging your hometown, it’s not the way he’d want.”

Protest. March. Shout. Scream. Cry. Kneel.

But if you’re looting, you’re not a protester, you’re a common thief, and you aren’t helping.

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Killer Mike, Run the Jewels rapper and social activist, urging violent protesters to replace their rage with force at the voting booth.

“I am the son of an Atlanta police officer. My cousin is an Atlanta city police officer. And my other cousin an East Point police officer. And I got a lot of love and respect for police officers. I watched a white police officer assassinate a black man, and I know that tore your heart out. I am duty-bound to be here to simply say that it is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization. It is time to beat up prosecutors you don’t like at the voting booth. It is time to hold mayoral offices accountable, chiefs and deputy chiefs. I’m mad as hell. “I woke up wanting to see the world burn yesterday, because I’m tired of seeing black men die. He casually put his knee on a human being’s neck for nine minutes as he died like a zebra in the clutch of a lion’s jaw. So that’s why children are burning it to the ground. They don’t know what else to do. And it is the responsibility of us to make this better right now. We don’t want to see one officer charged, we want to see four officers prosecuted and sentenced. We don’t want to see targets burning, we want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burnt to the ground.”

Once again … Protest. March. Shout. Scream. Cry. Kneel.

Then vote.

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Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, on the murder of George Floyd, the protests in Minneapolis, the dominos of racial injustice and police brutality:

“If you felt unease watching that Target being looted, try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day. Because that’s fundamentally what’s happening in America. Police in America are looting black bodies. Imagine to yourself, if you grew up in a community where every day someone had their knee on your neck, where every day someone was out there repressing you every single day. You tell me what that does to you as a society…and you know that this is happening because of the color of your skin.”

We’re almost 250 years into this country and we still treat ‘others’ as less than.

How long will it take for us to learn that we are all more alike than we are different?

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Anderson Cooper, on _____ teargassing peaceful protesters outside the White House so he could go to, ahem, church:

“Wow. We are in trouble. He was hiding in a bunker and embarrassed that people know that. So what does he have to do? He has to stick police on peaceful protesters so he can make a big show of being the little big man walking to a closed down church. He always talks about how the world is laughing at the governors right now, [but] the only person the world is laughing at is the President of the United States. And this event, if it wasn’t so dangerous and disgusting, it would be funny because it’s just so low rent and sad. We are witnessing a failure of presidential leadership at a time when this country, when we the people, need it more than ever, perhaps in our lifetime.”

He cares not about another dead black man. He only cares about a photo op for his base of faux-Christian racists.

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Kamala Harris, Democratic Senator from California, denouncing ____  for sowing “hate and division” and using the Bible as a prop.

“I think that Donald _____ has combined the worst of George Wallace with Richard Nixon. You know, when he talks about ‘end it now’ and then ‘dominate the streets,’ you know, dominate, it literally—one iteration of dominate is about supremacy and that’s what [_____] is about. Let’s be clear about it, he has spent full time from the time he ran for president throughout his term in office, full time trying to sow hate and division among the American people. What he is right now doing in terms of invoking the American military, threatening the American people with the American military, the use of the American military against its own people. He is not a commander in chief. He is a divider. He is clearly scared. And—and he cannot meet this moment that he has partly created because of his inability to understand the pain and the suffering. Right now America is raw. Her wounds are exposed. And instead of having a president who understands it, who empathizes, who lifts up the spirits and acknowledges the pain, we have someone who chooses to hold up the Bible like a prop for his own political gain.”

He’s a racist. There is no heart. There is no soul. There is no compassion. No thought about this crisis other than how it makes him look.

And he looks, and sounds, like a racist.

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Jimmy Kimmel, talk show host, blasting _____ for  inflaming violence amid the unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd:

“Unfortunately, this is the loop we get stuck in: It goes from ‘it isn’t right to kill an unarmed man’ to ‘well it also isn’t right to loot and set fires and attack the police, too’ [to] ‘but the police are attacking us and killing us over and over and nothing changes’ to ‘well that needs to be settled by the law’ to ‘well an officer of the law just killed another unarmed man.’ And so on. Last night there were senseless acts of violence that were brought on by a senseless act of violence. And it just keeps going in a loop. Our disgusting excuse for a president, Mr. Tough Guy Donnie Bone Spurs, says ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll make this worse [referring to _____’s “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” racist Tweet] I especially want to pose this question to older people who have seen this before in this country, who have lived this nightmare of race riots already, in the ’60s and ’70s, ’80s, now. Is this who you want leading us? A president who clearly and intentionally inflames violence in the middle of a riot to show how tough he is? A commander in chief who threatens to put members of our military in the position of having to shoot a fellow American on sight? I don’t care what you are, right, left, Republican, Democrat. Enough is enough. We’ve got to vote this guy out already. And we need to work on this problem we have, this blatant double standard because when you stand in front of the flag, you put your hand on your heart and you pledge allegiance with ‘liberty and justice for all,’ we don’t have that, ‘for all.’ I mean, I have it, a lot of you have it, but it’s not for all.”

For all.

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John Lewis, Congressman and civil Rights leader, on racism in this country:

“Sixty-five years have passed, and I still remember the face of young Emmett Till. It was 1955. I was 15 years old—just a year older than him. What happened that summer in Money, Mississippi, and the months that followed—the recanted accusation, the sham trial, the dreaded verdict—shocked the country to its core. And it helped spur a series of non-violent events by everyday people who demanded better from our country. Despite real progress, I can’t help but think of young Emmett today as I watch video after video after video of unarmed Black Americans being killed, and falsely accused. My heart breaks for these men and women, their families, and the country that let them down — again. My fellow Americans, this is a special moment in our history. Just as people of all faiths and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds, and colors banded together decades ago to fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly, non-violent fashion, we must do so again. To the rioters here in Atlanta and across the country: I see you, and I hear you. I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive. History has proven time and again that non-violent, peaceful protest is the way to achieve the justice and equality that we all deserve. Our work won’t be easy—nothing worth having ever is—but I strongly believe, as Dr. King once said, that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.”

Word.

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The Civil Rights Hero & The Draft Dodging Zero ... or ... The Dissident & the Pissident

John Robert Lewis is a career politician—he’s been Georgia's 5th congressional district Congressman since 1987—and, while I normally don’t care for career politicians, he is also an American hero, a political activist, a Civil Rights legend and one of the original resistors.

And he’s resisting still.

Lewis got an early start in resistance; while attending Fisk University in Tennessee,  he helped organize the “Nashville sit-ins” responsible for the desegregation of lunch counters in that city.

He attended nonviolence workshops and to this day he remains a dedicated adherent to the idea of nonviolence and civil disobedience.

He joined the Freedom Rides—a series of bus trips through the South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals—sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] and ultimately became a national leader in the struggle for civil rights and respect for human dignity.

He joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] and became one of the Big Six civil rights leaders of that era, and in 1963, he was elected to run the organization.

As chairman of SNCC, he helped organize the March On Washington, and at age 23 was the youngest speaker that day, alongside Martin Luther King.

He coordinated the SNCC's efforts for "Mississippi Freedom Summer," a campaign to register black voters across the South.

But it was March 7, 1965—also known as “Bloody Sunday”—for which Lewis became nationally known.

During the march from Selma to Montgomery, while leading over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Lewis and the protesters were met by Alabama State Troopers who ordered them to disperse. 

When the marchers stopped to pray, the police sprayed them with tear gas and mounted troopers charged at them. One man struck John Lewis with his police baton, fracturing Lewis’ skull; he managed to escape across the bridge, but before he allowed himself to be taken to the hospital, he appeared on television, demanding that President Johnson intervene.

John Lewis bears the physical scars from that day and yet he still fights. He was arrested for civil disobedience forty-five times and yet he continues to fight.

As a congressman from the Deep South, John Lewis is, and has been, one of the most liberal, and outspoken, members of Congress. He’s taken his fight for civil rights of Black Americans and brought it to the fight for civil rights of LGBT Americans.

In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, on June 22, 2016, House Democrats, led by John Lewis and Massachusetts Representative Katherine Clark, began a sit-in demanding House Speaker Paul Ryan allow a vote on gun-safety legislation.

John Lewis is a hero to anyone, anyone, who has ever felt “less than” and now he’s taken his fight to the incoming President ... on January 13, 2017, appearing on Meet The Press, John Lewis said:

"I don't see the president-elect as a legitimate president. I think the Russians participated in having this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don't plan to attend the inauguration. I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians, and others, that helped him get elected. That's not right. That's not fair. That's not the open, democratic process."

John Lewis’ opinion; something he has a right to share, something he has fought for his entire life. And something that has sent the president-elect into a tizzy.

Donald _____ instantly lashed out at John Lewis for his remarks, saying, er, Tweeting rather:

"Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to......mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!"

Actually, what’s sad is that the _____ Tweets appeared just two days before the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King and just two days before _____ was set to visit the African American History Museum—an event he has since canceled.

What is sad is that, while john Lewis was fighting for equality, while he was getting arrested, while he was being brutalized by Alabama state troopers, while he was being arrested forty-five times for civil disobedience, non-violent civil disobedience, Donald _____ was a draft dodger, receiving five deferments from military service, including one for bone spurs though he managed to play both football and golf.

And while John  Lewis was serving his country in Congress, Donald _____ was excluding African Americans from his buildings and making money on the backs of the less fortunate.

And this is the man our next president has chosen to attack on Twitter for simply speaking his mind. This man, _____, attacks a man who was endorsed by MLK; this man, _____, who was, himself, endorsed by the KKK.

This man, _____, treats Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with more respect than he gives to a sitting member of the United States Congress and a Civil Rights hero.

And that’s what we’re in for, for as long as the _____ presidency lasts—because I do believe his own party will try to oust him sooner rather than later—but the damage is done. He has created an America where you attack those that disagree with you; you assault the media because they ask a question; you belittle an actress for speaking her mind; you whine about TV shows and Broadway plays.

You lie.

You change your opinion on every policy upon which you campaigned because the election is over and you won.

You even denigrate those that voted for you.

And that is how many people will act because, as the president goes, so goes much of the country.

And that’s why we need to speak up, to stand up, to resist and refuse to accept this man. Donald _____’s disgraceful treatment of Congressman John Lewis just proves Lewis’ point about an illegitimate president, and we should all follow his example and make sure everyone knows that _____ is, as I call him on Twitter, a #FakePresident.

Turn off the TV when he appears; stay away from his ridiculous rants about SNL and focus on his policies; hold him accountable for what he says and does, and, perhaps more importantly, hold your representatives accountable for letting him say and do those things.

Demand the change, or vote everyone out of office who has stood by and let this carnival barker, this snake oil salesman, this least qualified person in the history of this country to ever be president, change us.

I still shake my head in disbelief over where this country was eight years ago—an economy in shambles, a war for oil still raging, no healthcare, no equality for LGBT Americans—and fear that we are headed backwards. Look how far we’ve come and we are on the verge of turning it all over.

But we can stop this; we can be like John Lewis and stand up to tyranny and injustice and an unqualified reality show star in the White House.

Stand up. Speak up. Resist. Be like John Lewis or end up like _____.