by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
A week ago Stephanie Flowers was a little known 65-year-old attorney and state senator from rural Arkansas, but now, thanks to a righteous wrath that would peel the paint off of an army tank - and the power of social media - the once unknown Senator Flowers has become a national phenom.
This week Senator Flowers was taking part in a Judiciary Committee hearing in the Arkansas legislature where a stand-your-ground bill was being debated, a bill that Senator Flowers believed would place black youth in harm's way:
"This is crazy," she told the other (all white) members of the committee. "You don't have to worry about your children! I worry about my son and I worry about other little black boys and girls and people coming into my neighborhood, into my city, saying they have open carry rights." She continued, "I am the only person here of color, OK. And I am a mother, too. I care as much for my son as you care for yours, but my son doesn't walk the same path as yours does."
During her argument against the bill she became so impassioned that the committee chairman, a Republican by the name of Alan Clark, tried to stop Senator Flowers from speaking. "Senator," he said in a low voice, " you need to stop."
"No I don't. What the hell are you going to do? Shoot me?" Clark tried again, but that effort prompted Senator Flowers to tell him to "Go to hell!"
She closed with "Do what the hell you wanna do, go ahead. But you can't silence me. You are not going to silence me!"
Video clips of Senator Flowers exploding all over the Arkansas State Senate Judiciary Committee are available on all major social media platforms, and they highlight the merits of speaking truth to power.
The Judiciary Committee voted four to three to kill the measure that Senator Flowers had so vehemently opposed. She had won the day.
(Historical Side Note: Senator Flowers is from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a community of 40,000 that also produced Martha Mitchell, the outspoken wife of Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, and herself a very defiant individual.)
Citizen Journalist
A week ago Stephanie Flowers was a little known 65-year-old attorney and state senator from rural Arkansas, but now, thanks to a righteous wrath that would peel the paint off of an army tank - and the power of social media - the once unknown Senator Flowers has become a national phenom.
This week Senator Flowers was taking part in a Judiciary Committee hearing in the Arkansas legislature where a stand-your-ground bill was being debated, a bill that Senator Flowers believed would place black youth in harm's way:
"This is crazy," she told the other (all white) members of the committee. "You don't have to worry about your children! I worry about my son and I worry about other little black boys and girls and people coming into my neighborhood, into my city, saying they have open carry rights." She continued, "I am the only person here of color, OK. And I am a mother, too. I care as much for my son as you care for yours, but my son doesn't walk the same path as yours does."
During her argument against the bill she became so impassioned that the committee chairman, a Republican by the name of Alan Clark, tried to stop Senator Flowers from speaking. "Senator," he said in a low voice, " you need to stop."
"No I don't. What the hell are you going to do? Shoot me?" Clark tried again, but that effort prompted Senator Flowers to tell him to "Go to hell!"
She closed with "Do what the hell you wanna do, go ahead. But you can't silence me. You are not going to silence me!"
Video clips of Senator Flowers exploding all over the Arkansas State Senate Judiciary Committee are available on all major social media platforms, and they highlight the merits of speaking truth to power.
The Judiciary Committee voted four to three to kill the measure that Senator Flowers had so vehemently opposed. She had won the day.
(Historical Side Note: Senator Flowers is from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a community of 40,000 that also produced Martha Mitchell, the outspoken wife of Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, and herself a very defiant individual.)
No comments:
Post a Comment