MASON, Tenn. – The Tennessee Comptroller issued an unusual appeal last week to residents of this small, majority Black town, which occupies fewer than two square miles in rural west Tennessee.
“In my opinion, it’s time for Mason to relinquish its charter,” Comptroller Jason Mumpower wrote in a letter mailed to each one of Mason’s 1,337 property owners.
Mumpower urged local residents to “encourage your local officials to do what’s necessary to allow Mason to thrive. There is no time to waste.”
State comptrollers, responsible for financial oversight of local government, typically communicate directly with elected local leaders and not their constituents. “We have not issued a letter to citizens like this before,” Comptroller spokesman John Dunn said, noting it is “unprecedented for us to publicly call for a town charter to be relinquished.”
But the Comptroller’s unprecedented public callout comes at an unprecedented time not only for Mason, but for the state. Mason, located in the southeastern corner of Tipton County, now finds itself with some of the most coveted real estate in Tennessee.
It’s one of the nearest towns to the massive new site to be built for Blue Oval City, a key component in Ford Motor Co’s multibillion-dollar pivot to electric vehicle manufacturing.
Mumpower’s letter has infuriated Mason’s part-time elected officials, who insist they have no intention of ceding their town’s 153-year-old charter – which would subsume the largely African-American, majority Democratic community under the governance of Tipton County, which is predominantly white and Republican.
“This is our home. We were born and raised here. The majority of the town is homegrown people that live here,” Vice Mayor Virginia Rivers said. “He is trying to conquer and divide us. It’s akin to a hostile take-over and it’s not hard to figure out why here, why now.”
Town leaders are accusing Mumpower and other state officials of big-footing a long-ignored, largely Black community now that major investment is heading its way.
Mason is 60% Black and includes descendants of men, women and children enslaved in the area before Emancipation. For more than a century the town was led by White elected officials.
That changed in 2016, when fraud and mismanagement allegations led to the resignations of nearly all City Hall officials, all of whom were White. Mason’s current mayor, vice mayor and five of its six alderman are Black.
“It’s because of the Black people that are in office,” said Rivers, who first became Vice Mayor in 2021.
“And it’s because of all the places in the world, Blue Oval could have selected, they selected here. There’s no way Mason won’t prosper and grow. And now they want to take it away from us.”
Yet again like in the past. New day, new Jim Crow-esque tactics, perfectly timed takeovers. This Black American town needs to be promptly saved without handing a damn thing over. The town elected mostly Black officials back in 2015. They’ve been trying to pay off the debt from when the town was previously ran by mostly white officials. Literally playing catch-up.
This ain’t nothing but a glimpse of what it looks like before eventually uprooting and displacing Black people off the land they have resided on since forever and where their ancestors labored said land as property in chattel slavery and the move into Jim Crow.
This shit should be on the news. But as usual, they make it known after the deed is done or not at all and you end up finding out years later.
:
[images read: The Navy Water Crisis Could Halt New Construction On O‘ahu. If the water system can’t take on new users, it would be “catastrophic”, a construction industry lobbyist said. The U.S. Navy’s contamination of Honolulu’s primary drinking water source could trigger major impacts to the island’s economy and quality of life, including a potential moratorium on new construction, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply told Hawaii senators in a briefing on Monday. The entire island is already being advised to reduce its usage by 10%, but that voluntary restriction is likely just the beginning of the impacts of the crisis on the civilian population. Developers have started receiving letters from the BWS stating that the water utility can’t promise water will be available for new buildings. BWS may also implement mandatory water limits for residential and commercial users as well as major rate hikes for customers who don’t reduce their usage, officials said on Monday. BWS could restrict flow or shut water off entirely for those who don’t comply.“ /end]
the people always pay, in the end.
the navy poisoned the island’s water, and now restrictions have locals in a stranglehold, at the same time that soaring gas&electricity prices also have residents in a stranglehold to pay for the same jet fuel the Navy used to poison this water and cause this water shortage. the islands have been under water restrictions for decades: another 10%, that people will be monetarily penalized for if they can’t cut their water usage back enough, is absolutely fucking absurd, especially with price hikes ALREADY happening to compensate for the losses.
on a separate note, while tourism&military/DOD are the primary job options in Hawai‘i (in general)&O‘ahu (specifically) residents, construction is the primary job for LOCALS, especially KĀNAKA. it’s backbreaking labor, and i shouldn’t have to explain how Native Hawaiian men specifically got cornered into it as colonialism sunk it’s teeth into the islands&development picked up pace. i’m not exactly thrilled to be arguing in alignment with developers necessarily, but this (VERY conveniently for everyone but kānaka) fucks over one of the only major types of employment that isn’t entirely dependent upon the military or tourism.
finally, here are images of the military golf courses (ONLY the ones owned by the military) on the island of O‘ahu, all irrigated by O‘ahu’s naturally filtered water, all not being restricted (the bulk of these are owned by the Navy specifically, two minimum take water from the aquifer that the Navy poisoned):
Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course
Barbers Point Golf Course
Navy Marine Golf Course
Malama Bay Golf Course
Leilehua Golf Course
Walter J Nagorski Golf Course
Hickam Ke'alohi Par 3 Golf Course
&a rough estimate on what water usage to keep these courses (some literally closed to anyone but the military) open:
[ID: "Audubon International estimates that the average American course uses 312,000 gallons per day. In a place like Palm Springs, where 57 golf courses challenge the desert, each course eats up a million gallons a day.” /ID]
Hawai‘i is an illegally occupied nation, &her people are constantly either priced out of our home or dying in the streets because we cannot afford to live or leave.
Love it when corporations put me in a hole in the ground and torture me psychologically for two centuries. This is the American Dream
Fallout Games, Repeatedly: “The vaults were never meant to save anyone. The people who came out of the vaults were all extra-broken beyond what you’d even expect from generations of living in the vaults because the vaults were all designed as incredibly unethical psychological experiments.”
This Genius: “The vaults saved humanity!”
Imagine playing the Fallout games, walking through all the ruins of vaults, factories and millitary complexes. Imagine seeing all the literal skeletons of people who died from cruel experiments by millitary scientists, exploitation by capitalist businessmen, killed by malfunctioning robots put in place by said capitalist businessmen, or literally murdered by the government for daring to question America’s greatness.
Imagine seeing all of that and thinking, “Oh no, the communists killed them too? If only they had been more capitalist! That would have saved them. I’m very smart!”
tangentially related to bimbos and other recent trends, i have a big issue with communists or leftists who shy away from the responsibility to be militant in their dedication to theoretical, historical and political knowledge. if theory or history arent your strong points yeah ofc i dont think every single person needs to follow this really stringently, everyone has different limitations and working within them is just as valuable. but to deny its importance completely is honestly cowardly. first of all, communist practice isnt even a possibility without having a grasp on theory and the history that led to current conditions. second, to be a communist in a capitalist world where, as the default, imperialist lies are accepted as truth and information is twisted to serve capitalist ideology, means you will constantly be forced to justify your beliefs and defend the truth. this is impossible without making an effort to build your intellectual and historical knowledge. communists have to know hundreds of times more than even the most middling defender of capital or empire because they have the entire media and educational apparatus on their side and we dont. this is something thats been understood for decades, its why political education has always been crucial for communists. you belittle the achievements of radicals in the past when you try to downplay the commitment people have had to political education and literacy
Good take but this is really not what I was expecting from a post that started off with “tangentially related to bimbos”
Funny how he now considers vehicles as weapons now when he failed to mention their usage during the BLM protests or any left adjacent protest. But it’s weirder that this guy, 18 years old btw, allegedly ran a series of red lights and now he is immediately being labeled as a terrorist or criminal.
Mayor’s a real piece of shit
Saw this yesterday and debated on whether to post about it.
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