are starting to really insert themselves in the business of Memphis. You basically have Shelby County, which is largely Memphis, and it is dominated by Democrats, many of whom are African-American. Then you have the rest of the state. Don't get me wrong, there are pockets of Democrats here and there, but by and large it's Memphis vs. the rest of the state.
The City of Memphis recently surrendered their school charter in order to have it absorbed into the county. The outer regions of Shelby County were moving chess pieces behind the scenes to develop suburban school districts which would by and large be white, and they were trying to freeze the AAs out. State Republicans, none of whom live in Memphis or Shelby County, wrote some crazy bill to try to head off Memphis' proposed school system dissolution, so Memphis just surrendered the charter before they could ram it through, effectively forcing the merger. It's still tied up in court.
The state wants to punish Democrats in Shelby County, and they *really* want to punish African Americans. This place is so steeped in racism. It is truly unbelievable. It was bad enough when they would just keep from diverting funds this way, but when they actively tried to tell Memphis they couldn't change the names of their own parks, even the white city councilmen said "that's enough." The vote last night to rename the parks was 9 yeas and 3 abstentions.
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