Anti-Muslim Display Gets Tempers Flaring Around W.Va. House; Leads to Resignation, Injury
Source: West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Anti-Muslim sentiments seen just outside of the West Virginia House of Delegates Friday caused an explosive day in and around the chamber, which led to the resignation of a staff member, an injury and possible disciplinary action against a Democratic member.
A display in the rotunda during “WV GOP Day” sparked a day’s worth of controversy in which the chamber’s Sergeant at Arms submitted a letter of resignation. House Republican leaders say the reaction to that display and other comments led also to a doorkeeper being injured when a Democratic member kicked open the doors to the chamber.
The West Virginia Republican Party and other organizations had set up displays as part of the scheduled activities around the Capitol. One group had an exhibit that included a poster depicting a meme with two photos.
The top photo showed planes crashing into the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001 with the text “‘Never Forget’ - You Said.” Below that photo was a photo of U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D- Minn and text “I Am Proof - You Have Forgotten.”
Read more: http://www.wvpublic.org/post/anti-muslim-display-gets-tempers-flaring-around-wva-house-leads-resignation-injury
Republicans never stop being assholes.
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Link to tweet
Look no further, the GOP's anti-Muslim display likening me to a terrorist rocks in state capitols and no one is condemning them! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gop-s-anti-muslim-display-likening-rep-omar-terrorist-rocks-n978371
Response to progree (Reply #3)
Last edited Sun Mar 3, 2019, 12:52 AM - Edit history (1)
Toward the end of 2016, just when many Americans were looking for an explanation for how Donald Trump became a presidential candidate then president, *Hillbilly Elegy* by J.D. Vance hit stores and shot to the top of the New York Times best seller list. The book, Vance’s memoir and analysis of Appalachian culture and rural poverty, offered conservatives and liberals alike a perspective on the poor white America they held responsible for electing Donald Trump. It’s no mystery why the book’s release coincided with a flood of parachute journalism into “Trump Country” that, a year later, is still going strong.
*Hillbilly Elegy* was hailed from both sides of the political aisle, a rare accomplishment during politically divisive times, and it proved to be as popular as it was provocative. Whereas the New York Times praised it as “a compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion,” Elegy was also criticized by many for advancing a narrative of Appalachia as a homogenous white region crumbling under a poverty created by its own lazy culture. “Elegy is little more than a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class,” wrote the New Republic’s Sarah Jones.
Despite the debate, Vance’s book was a hit and he along with it. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, Vance became mainstream media’s go-to interpreter of Appalachia and Trump Country in general. Appalachia’s characterization in popular culture was recemented as stuck-in-time, poor (due to laziness), white, and undeserving of pity. Throughout it all, Appalachians have spoken out against Vance becoming the mouthpiece for an entire region.
Among those endeavoring to fight back against the narrative of Appalachia Vance promotes is historian Elizabeth Catte, author of **What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia**, which is out February 6"...
https://theoutline.com/post/3147/elizabeth-catte-what-you-are-getting-wrong-about-appalachia-interview
"Liberal Shaming of Appalachia; The Elite Media's Obsession with the 'Hillbilly Problem'" Elizabeth Catte, Salon, 2017. >"It’s far less unsettling to blame what are ultimately the failures of technology, the free market and our social responsibilities to one another on backward and provincial people who live in an “other America.” This is a compelling reason for why Kevin Baker, for example, likely feels justified in writing a 2,000-word *hit piece on a county in West Virginia that yielded just 4,629 votes for Trump when his neighbors in Staten Island, New York provided 100,000."
https://www.salon.com/2017/03/21/liberal-shaming-of-appalachia-inside-the-media-elites-obsession-with-the-hillbilly-problem/
JFK campaigning in Logan Co., WVA. The MASS senator won the 1960 Democratic Primary because of the Mountain State.
"Appalachia Isn't The Reason We're Living In 'Trump Country,'" Elizabeth Catte, Feb. 1, 2018
https://lithub.com/appalachia-isnt-the-reason-were-living-in-trump-country/
"I wrote a book—What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia—about the myths that shape our understanding of the region, who profits from them, what we can do to resist them, and, perhaps most importantly, why we should. I’ll give you a taste of the work that these myths do by introducing you to McDowell County, WV, one of the poorest communities in the state and a place enshrined by the Guardian, Huffington Post, Circa, the National Post, CNN, and CBS—just to name a few of the outlets with the largest audiences—as the beating heart of Trump Country.
Reporters from Circa even spent election night in McDowell County, and subsequently offered ready a chance to see “what victory looks like in the most pro-Trump county in America.” In prestigious publications Appalachia ceased to be part of America but a destructive force unto its own—no longer a place but a problem now singularly responsible for the most distressing problem of all: a Trump presidency. **Hillbilly Elegy**, embraced as a definitive textbook about the region’s dysfunctional culture, appeared as a frequent citation in such analysis and Vance confirmed this outlook in his transformation from venture capitalist to pundit and political up-and-comer.
But was McDowell County really “Trump Country,” at least in the way the media purported? No. McDowell County, the last Democratic strong hold in West Virginia, experienced the lowest voter turnout in the state, which political reporters with their knowledge of the relationship between poverty and voting behavior should have predicted. Donald Trump did win McDowell County but the majority of eligible voters, by choice, design, or circumstance simply stayed home on Election Day, an outcome common in Appalachia. And it was not a unique culture of dysfunction or economic anxiety that brought Trump voters there to the polls, it was their calculated choice. In this Appalachian voters were not alone and because their beliefs aligned with millions of voters across the country we are all now residents of Trump Country.
By virtue of the election results and polling, we now understand that a broad coalition of white voters elected Trump, not just “hillbillies.” I am the other Appalachia you’ll meet in my book—the women who walked picket lines, and the men who went to war to control their labor. I am the anonymous anti-coal insurgents, I am the hillfolk who fought segregation. I belong to the people who helped destroy mountains but also the people who thought nothing of climbing them to help someone.
