Everything’s Political, Including the L.A. Rebellion

Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s weekly news, culture, and politics newsletter!

In this edition, learn about how a pioneering Black actor lived up to the idea that all art is political, what an Arkansas ruling means for two Black educators in the state, why Louisiana might backtrack on its voting map, what’s next for an anti-transgender bill in South Carolina, and how a protest at the University of Mississippi took a nasty turn.

On with the show.

Daughter of a Revolutionary Film Movement

For the actor Barbara O. Jones, cinema had a political dimension.

Jones, who has passed away at 82 years old, came up through the L.A. Rebellion, a film movement that emerged at the University of California, Los Angeles in the years after the 1965 Watts Uprising. These artists rooted their work in a cinematic vision that embraced — rather than denigrated — Black experiences and examined a number of political themes: anti-colonialism, Black Power, second-wave feminism. Directors leaned on the talents of Jones and others to breathe life into their projects.

There was Haile Gerima’s 1973 short film, Child of Resistance, in which Jones plays an Angela Davis-like advocate who’s been locked away. There was also Julie Dash’s impressionistic 1991 movie, Daughters of the Dust, in which Jones plays a former sex worker who returns home to her Gullah community to confront the eroding forces of modernity.

These rich and poetic explorations of Black life have influenced everyone from 13th director and Queen Sugar creator Ava DuVernay to Beyoncé, whose 2016 visual album, Lemonade, echoes the dreamlike tone and imagery of Daughters of the Dust.

Today, as Black Americans face a fresh assault on their humanity, the L.A. Rebellion’s focus on Black pride and strength is an urgent reminder that art, in the right hands, can be a powerful political tool.

Classroom Showdown in Arkansas

A federal judge on Tuesday guaranteed that two Black educators at Little Rock Central High School, where the “Little Rock Nine” enrolled in 1957, wouldn’t be disciplined under Section 16 of the LEARNS Act for teaching about race or other “controversial” topics.

While the judge didn’t block Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ far-reaching law across the state — the injunction applies only to the two educators who brought the lawsuit — racial justice advocates are hailing the ruling as a major win.

“The court’s ruling makes clear that students’ right to receive information and ideas was violated,” David Hinojosa, an attorney for the plaintiffs and the director of the educational opportunities project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. “The ruling should provide teachers greater comfort in teaching the truth, and challenging students to broaden their perspectives.”

The Palmetto State’s Attack on Transgender Americans

The move was as unsurprising as it was alarming: The Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate voted this month to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

The Senate’s approval of the bill comes at a particularly perilous time for Black transgender South Carolinians. Earlier this year, a man in the Palmetto State was found guilty of a federal hate crime involving the 2019 murder of Dime Doe.

Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, noted that “this case is historic,” because “this defendant is the first to be found guilty by trial verdict for a hate crime motivated by gender identity under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” signed into law in 2009.

Last year, the Human Rights Commission warned that transgender women, and especially Black transgender women, are facing an “epidemic of violence.” You can read the LGBTQ rights organization’s full report on the issue here.

The bill now returns to the House. If the GOP-led lower chamber approves it, the bill then goes to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk.

“This bill is an extreme political attack on the well-being of children and on the right of families to obtain evidence-based care for their children,” Jace Woodrum, the executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said in a statement. “Transgender people belong in South Carolina, and we will never stop fighting.”

Black Louisianans’ Fight Continues

Maybe it was too good to be true.

In January, Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a map that adds a second majority-Black congressional district. Late last month, however, a three-judge trial panel in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to strike down the map for allegedly violating the Constitution.

A group of self-described “non-African American voters” (at least a few are white) brought the challenge, insisting that the map “racially stigmatizes” them. Their claim is just the latest attempt to push back against efforts to boost racial equality, a task that has become considerably easier since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that dismantled affirmative action.

This reversal “is a slap in the face to Black voters who have already gone through one congressional election under a map that dilutes their votes,” Stuart Naifeh, the manager of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s redistricting project, said in a press release. He added, “The law is clear that states must abide by the Voting Rights Act and can properly consider race when doing so, as the Supreme Court told us just last year.”

Black Louisianans have appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. While the case likely won’t affect the 2024 elections — the high court avoids changing voting rules and regulations too close to contests — there’s a good chance that this will be a 2025 fight.

Israel-Hamas War Protests Turn Ugly

On one side: a lone Black woman advocating for Palestinian rights. On the other: dozens of white men jeering at her, including one who’s making monkey sounds and gestures.

This was a scene at the University of Mississippi, where Israel-Hamas war demonstrations took a nasty turn earlier this month. Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia seemed to endorse the men’s behavior, declaring, “Ole Miss taking care of business.” (He has since walked back this praise.)

The student who mimicked a monkey was kicked out of his fraternity, which condemned his actions as racist and “antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta.” Still, the incident illuminated what some observers suggest might be a growing trend where people use the campus demonstrations to broadcast their racial animus.

“A White frat boy mocking a Black woman as a monkey isn’t about ‘Stand With Israel’ or ‘Free Palestine.’ This is protest as performative racism,” said Cornell William Brooks, a professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Or, as The New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones put it, “It’s always good to know how they really feel and what their opposition to the protests is really about.”

To learn about the echoes between our past and our present when it comes to social justice movements, check out my conversation with Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Figuring out where to stream Daughters of the Dust,

Brandon Tensley

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