In John Carpenter's 1981 film, Escape from New York, he posited a city turned into a maximum security prison in 1997. Utilities were cut off, the bridges were mined, and the US Police Force kept anyone from ever getting out.
He was only off by 26 years and a few states.
Mississippi House Republicans have just sent the shooting script (HB 1020) for their latest magnum opus, There's No Escape from Jackson MS, to the GOP-controlled State Senate.
The bill provides for the creation of the "Capital Complex Improvement District," with new, unelected judges selected by only white officials (the MS Constitution otherwise requires judges to be elected), and expands the Capitol Police force in numbers and authority over the only predominantly white-occupied neighborhoods of America's blackest city.
From Mississippi Today:
A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.
If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state attorney general would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state public safety commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.
The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.
Mississippi’s capital city is 80% Black and home to a higher percentage of Black residents than any major American city. Mississippi’s Legislature is thoroughly controlled by white Republicans, who have redrawn districts over the past 30 years to ensure they can pass any bill without a single Democratic vote. Every legislative Republican is white, and most Democrats are Black. ...
“Only in Mississippi would we have a bill like this … where we say solving the problem requires removing the vote from Black people,” Rep. Ed Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton, said while pleading with his colleagues to oppose the measure.
Representative Trey Lamar III, surprisingly, did not wear a white linen suit as he answered questions for four hours that mostly involved him having to come up with new ways of saying that Black people in a Black-majority city shouldn't have the same voting rights as white people was not racist.
Thanks to the Clarion Ledger, you, too, can learn how to make disfranchising Black people sound like it's for their own good:"I don't know what you've heard, I'll say that, but this bill is designed to help make our capital city of Mississippi a safer city. This bill is designed to assist the court system of Hinds County, not to hinder it. It is designed to add to our judicial resources in Hinds County, not to take away. To help, not to hurt," Lamar said.
"I'm going to stand here and I'm going to take the bullets, and everything else that comes my way, and try to answer as many questions I can, but keep in mind, this is about helping Hinds County court system and helping make our capital city safer," Lamar said.
The idea of "our capital city" was one that came up often, as detractors pointed out that Lamar lives more than two hours from Jackson.
"The city of Jackson is the capital city of the state of Mississippi, whether you are from Southaven or Gulfport. It is our capital city. It does not belong solely to the citizens of Jackson, OK?" Lamar said.
Responding to an amendment that would require the court's judges to be Hinds County residents, Lamar said the chief justice of the supreme court should pick whoever they want.
"If we're going to make an additional court in the city of Jackson, do we not want our best and brightest sitting in judgment, whether that may come from Holmes County or Madison County or wherever they may be? Why would we limit the talent pool to here?" Lamar said.
After accusations that the "best and brightest" language was referencing the racial demographics of Hinds County, Lamar said he had been "misconstrued."
"That's not what I'm saying at all. The best person for the job may very well come from Hinds County, and if so the supreme court can appoint that person," Lamar said.
Lamar did not directly answer a question as to whether he had consulted Jackson residents of color when crafting the bill.
"All God's children are unique. We're all God's children," Lamar responded.
Having refused to fix the water quality issue or to spend more funds for regularly elected judges in Jackson, Representative Lamar and his colleagues appear to have left the chamber for another screening of Escape from New York.
The janitor reports that they were munching popcorn while trying to figure out how best to build a wall around the majority-Black neighborhoods of Jackson.
According to one source near the screening, it seems that the most dissension came when discussing whether or not to go with no-bid contracts or simply write in the KKK for the role of manning the machine-gun towers.
"We figure the woke liberals will try to play the race card here," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "You know how they are. Every time we take some sort of reasonable, paternalistic action to safeguard our Black citizens from themselves, they go ballistic."
Contacted via telepathy for comments on the action, race hustler Tucker Carlson thought, "This angry backlash condemning common sense supervisory legislation to save Mississippi's capital from the depredations of its Black citizens -- who are obviously under the thumb of BLM, Antifa, and the CDC -- is another example of woke liberal hatred of the white race."
Breaking into the ether stream, the thoughts of rival race hustler Christopher Rufo remarked, "If the government hadn't been trying to cram CRT down the throats of Black Mississippi schoolchildren, literally since Reconstruction, they'd understand how important it is for the general welfare that they just do what they're told."
This thought stream was cut short when Rufo was reminded that he was late to a meeting of the Trustees of New College to determine whether to fire the mostly Black and Hispanic custodial staff for repeatedly not having burned liberal CRT-contaminated textbooks when they found them left in the classrooms at night.
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