Martin Luther King weekend was a whipsaw of conflicting emotions. At the Reno Unitarian church last Sunday, preacher Barbano’s introduction of the racially oppressed and internationally famous Yerington family brought a sustained standing ovation.
I was honored to meet 14 year-old sisters Jayla Tolliver and Taylissa Marriott, their mother, Nancy, and Uncle Reggie Brantley (Sparks Ironworkers Local 118/AFL-CIO, ret.). They were accompanied by fearless attorney Terri Keyser-Cooper who recently filed major federal civil rights litigation against the City of Yerington and the Lyon County School District.
Adding to Nevada’s embarrassment, the Huffington Post published an incisive review of the Yerington case which you may access with the actual legal docs via this column at Barbwire.US/
You can help. Ms. Keyser-Cooper is not charging for her estimable legal expertise but the family must foot expensive ongoing court costs, 10 grand and more. They’ve built a GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/attorney-fees-against-racism/
Help them out. Please.
SPARKS ANTES IN. The 20th Onie Cooper Memorial MLK Caravan formed last Monday morning at the Sparks LDS church. All of the above generated news from four locally-affiliated network stations.
I was gratified that The Barbwire brought out people who would not have otherwise known. I also got vile responses.
“I get death threats all the time,” attorney Terri said, speaking from the hard-earned experience of the avatar for justice she has always been.
IN CHURCH, TOO. Reno-Sparks NAACP President Patricia Gallimore asked those in attendance on Sunday to pray for NAACP matriarch and former president Dolores Feemster. Grandma has been hospitalized for more than a week. I visited her and ran video of her son, Lonnie, also a former president, with the Yerington family.
INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENTS, PART DEUX. The hits just keep on comin’ so I’ll make some bizarro projections.
Barbwire Peerless Predixion: If Haiti receives substantial international aid as a result of Czar Trumpsky’s explicit and exlaxatively racist comments, Donaldov the Great will take credit for having stimulated “HUGE” non-taxpayer relief for that beleaguered island. Almost makes me wish he’d utter additional putdowns of our U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico. Anything to bring back electricity and running water.
BPP2: You can win bar bets identifying the next nation upon which Trump will foment war. (Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria don’t count.)
And the winner is: MEXICO! They won’t pay for Emperor Hatrian’s Wall, so he can declare as a bad deal the 1848 treaty securing our spoils from winning the Mexican War (in defense of slavery). He will consider it a corporate takeover, noting that drug cartels are making billions in profit that should go to US corporations.
BPP3: After conquest, we will make Mexico our 51st state which will distort the symmetrical American flag star lineup. Trump’s solution will be to simply replace the stars with his face.
We will keep it at 50 by letting Texas secede because they’re dangerous. Under its deal to gain admission to the union, the Lone Star Republic can metastasize into five states anytime, thus giving it permanent U.S. Senate control.
That solution came from White House demonstrators via Nevada expatriate and Barbwire DC spy Jan C. who suggested “pressure on the Lyon school board to teach the origin of our DNA in Africa. We’re all related. ‘But all our schoolbooks are printed in Texas so they’ll never tell the truth about this’ as a young black girl or maybe ten told me down at the White House.”
So let’s remove their influence.
El Presidente, of course, will take credit for renegotiating the Mexican War even if he couldn’t change the flag to worship his own image and likeness.
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org/ He serves as first vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us>
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