Carroll G. Robinson
Juneteenth is a a vital piece of American history, celebrating the Declaration of Independence
For a lot of Texans (and Americans) what they think we are celebrating today, Juneteenth-Freedom Day-is simply a Black history event. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, what we are commemorating and celebrating is a vital piece of American history and another reaffirmation of our nation’s highest ideals and fundamental values; the principals of Freedom, Liberty and Justice.
General Gordon Granger’s announcement, in Galveston on June 19, 1865, was a statement of Freedom, Liberty and Justice. For Black Texans, it was a reassertion of the ideals of The Declaration of Independence that we are all created equal, by our Creator, and have a God given set of rights that no government or individual should be allowed to take from any of us.
Juneteenth is a reminder that we must never give up no matter how tough or trying the times.
This year, it is especially important that we all speak up for telling the truth about our state’s (and nation’s) history and its ongoing impact as far too many Republicans, in Texas and all across our country, are now engaged in an all-out assault on teaching the truth about racism, in our nation.
During the past five years, Republicans have moved from the delusional deception of alternative facts and their embracing of the “Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election to now trying to suppress knowledge and forcing upon our nation the world that George Orwell warned us of in his book 1984.
Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian Heritage Month, Pride Month and Women’s History Month all exist because for too long the true facts about these Americans and our communities have been excluded and ignored in the teaching, telling and selling of the American story. We have come too far, as a nation, since 1865 to go back to being late with the truth. E pluribus unum does not work if the truth, suffering, sacrifice and contributions of the “many” are not openly and honestly acknowledged but is instead consciously and intentionally denied. Only the truth will truly set our nation free. “Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.”
Celebrating Juneteenth is a celebration of The Declaration of Independence and what it stands for. We are all! created equal and have a God given right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As the Founding Fathers expressed in The Declaration and the original colonies ratified with the Bill of Rights: as human beings we are entitled to a criminal justice system that is just, not arbitrary and biased.
In The Declaration, the Founders also made it absolutely clear that “just power” comes “from the consent of the governed….” They specifically explained that the King wanted some of the colonists to “relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.” The way the “governed” express
our “consent”, in America, is through our right to vote at the ballot box. Suppressing the right to vote of Americans is an act of tyranny.
If you don’t get it, go read The Declaration of Independence from the beginning to end. The right to vote and equal justice under the law are sacrosanct even though it took a Civil War, multiple amendments to our federal Constitution along with United States Supreme Court decisions and the Civil Rights Movement to bring us to where we should have truly started from.
Today, the reality is that we are once again engaged in a battle for the future of our nation. The consensus that once prevailed that we were all on the same basic path towards “a more perfect Union” is no longer true. The Republican Party is now no longer a partner in pursuit of “a more perfect Union.” Republicans are afraid of the future. They are no longer the party of Lincoln and reconstruction and reconciliation. Republicans are now the party of Trump, social division, voter suppression and denial of scientific and historic truth.
Democrats must be the party that modernizes our criminal justice system to better keep Americans safe while eliminating the racial inequality now existing in our system.
Democrats need to pass into law immediately a restored and modernized Voting Rights Act to help protect against state voter suppression laws and racial gerrymandering masquerading as extreme partisan gerrymandering.
America needs a new Digital Bill of Rights to protect our data and allow us to control and benefit from the monetization of our data as well as to protect our genomic and health information gathered and stored online by our fitness devices to prevent continuing race based health disparities.
No person ever knows all that is coming but we must never fear the future. We must be resilient and never give up no matter the odds or the opponent. For America, Juneteenth must a be lesson we learn from for a lifetime.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
Carroll G. Robinson
Right-leaning Texas Supreme Court might be empowering Governor Abbott’s excesses
What is happening in Texas right now is much more than a simple partisan political battle. Texas Democrats are at ground zero in the fight for the future of not just our state, but also our nation.
Texas Republicans are not only at the forefront of their party’s national efforts to suppress the vote in support of the “Big Lie” but to also help lay the groundwork to undermine the 2024 presidential election and to help eliminate telling the truth about American history and its present day impacts.
Not only are Texas Republicans doing all they can to corrupt our political process, they have also spent years warping the Texas judiciary.
We now have Republican state judges in Texas saying that it is constitutional for the Governor to defund the other two branches of state government. Essentially, the Republican Texas Supreme Court has now said that the Texas Governor is a king.
What is going to happen to the rule of law in Texas when the Governor decides that he disagrees with the Texas judiciary and it is no longer needed and he defunds it? This is the door that Republican judges on the Texas Supreme Court have just kicked wide open in their obsessive commitment to partisan judicial making in support of the partisan political agenda of Texas and national Republicans.
We need a better Texas Supreme Court.
We need a better Texas Supreme Court.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
In the next few months Harris County Commissioners Court will be appointing a new sheriff once current Sheriff Ed Gonzales is confirmed by the United States Senate to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Hopefully, we make history in Harris County and get the first Black Sheriff in county history. Regardless of who Commissioners end up selecting, I want to encourage them to have the new sheriff convene a countywide Public Safety Summit with all law enforcement agencies across the county-Sheriff’s office, Constables, city police departments, Metro’s police department and the police department of all school districts, colleges, universities and community college systems, Texas Rangers, U.S. Marshall and FBI-to discuss and implement a comprehensive coordinated strategy to help reduce crime all across the county including in every city in Harris County.
Crime and criminals know no boundaries and all law enforcement agencies across our county are being funded by local taxpayers. Artificial boundaries should not stop Harris County law enforcement agencies (and certified Texas Peace Officers) from working together in a much more unified manner to better protect all Harris County residents no matter which city they live in or where in unincorporated Harris County they live.
We are not going to reduce crime in Houston or Harris County unless all of law enforcement works together. No one city or the county or school district or college can do it all alone.
Harris County law enforcement agencies must expand on the Homeland Security Fusion Center model to help increase crime prevention, arrests and clearance rates. This effort must also include shared access to security cameras and in the coming years a joint law enforcement command center similar to TranStar and consideration of a countywide or regional public safety district.
We have to try new ideas to fight crime in our community and better coordination and greater use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) powered technology must be a part of the conversation. Harris County, local law enforcement leadership and our state legislative and congressional delegations must all help lead and contribute to this effort.
Right now, what taxpayers want, need and deserve is results, not people we are paying telling us what is not their responsibility.
We deserve a new Sheriff who will build on what has been done right, but who will also be unafraid to offer leadership in new ways.
To the County Commissioners and Judge Hidalgo: please pick someone for Sheriff who will be able to do more than just operate the county jail.
______
BY THE WAY: It may be hot outside right now, but remember the Texas electric grid failed us in the cold. It will get cold again, in Texas. Even worse, we have already been warned by Republican Governor Greg Abbott that the electricity grid may also fail us all during the heat of these summer months. Why isn’t Governor Abbott standing up for Texans to oppose increases in our electric bills? #WeDidn’tBreakTheGrid…The PUC and ERCOT did. Now ERCOT wants us to believe that Texas needs a 60 Point Plan to #FixTheGrid. That’s Crazy. The Texas Coalition of Black Democrats has a One Point Plan to Fix The Grid: FIRE Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton. #BeatAPP. That’s the plan to #FixTheGridandFixTexas.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
I am not going to Austin today, Saturday, June 10, 2021, to testify against the State Senate voter suppression bill because it won’t make a difference to Republicans. I also don’t believe that Democratic state lawmakers should have returned for the Special Session to allow Republicans to even have the opportunity to pass all the bad bills that Governor Abbott has recommended be passed.
For me, there is no acceptable middle ground on the bills that Republicans want to pass. My only goals are to kill those bills, elect a Democratic majority in the legislature and elect Democrats to statewide offices. To achieve these goals in 2022, Democrats in the legislature must once again leave. They must not let Governor Abbott hold them hostage because he vetoed legislative funding. Abbott did it and they need to let him pay the political price for doing it. Democratic donors and labor unions can (and must) help take care of the state employees that may have to go on unemployment during this fight for the future of our state.
Republicans are not only going to pass legislation to suppress our right to vote, they are also going to pass bills to whitewash the teaching of history in our state, make health care options for women harder to obtain, discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community and take Texas taxpayers’ money to build a wall at the border rather than use that money to fix the grid and improve health care and broadband access in rural communities.
It is not too late for Democrats, in the Legislature, to once again bust the quorum and leave.
The job of the Texas Legislature is to protect Texans and our tax dollars; It is not to discriminate against Black, Hispanic, low income, women, LGBTQ+ and younger Texans but that is exactly what Republicans are planning to do during this Special Session. Enough is enough. Democrats have to start fighting back as hard and as tough as Republicans are doing and the Texas Democratic Party needs to lead that fight.
It is not too late for Democrats, in the Legislature, to once again bust the quorum and leave. Nothing good is going to happen for the people they represent during this Special Session and they represent more than just the people who live in their district. After State House Democrats walked out to kill the voter suppression bill at the end of the Regular Session, they now represent all Texans and Americans fighting to protect and save our democracy.
For Texas Democratic state lawmakers, doing their job-at this moment in history-for those they represent in Texas (and all across our nation) demands that they, once again, bust the quorum and leave the Texas Capital.
Texas Democratic State lawmakers can save our nation; they can draw a line in the sand here, in Texas, against voter suppression, hate and discrimination.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
-
Column1 day agoNavigating Bias and Ethics in AI-Powered Cybersecurity: The BRACE Framework Approach
-
News2 days agoTrump trial update: Trump rebuked by judge for speaking during jury selection — and 7 jurors are seated
-
Education3 days ago11 Communication Students Awarded Scholarships at TSU’s Commweek
-
Lifestyle2 days agoBody of O.J. Simpson to be cremated this week; brain will not be studied for CTE
-
Africa2 days agoDonors raise more than 2 billion euros for Sudan aid a year into war
-
News2 days agoNigeria suspends permit of 3 private jet operators
-
News2 days agoNigeria: chibok abduction anniversary spurs demands for justice
-
News2 days agoOMG: Dismissed Juror Has Describes What It’s Like Seeing Trump In Person