Just when we were trying to give Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris the benefit of a doubt, thinking that there might be a chance that he would be the grown-up in the suburban debate about school consolidation, he’s show his true colors.

When push came to shove, he’s just Ron Lollar with a better vocabulary and puffed-up sense of his own importance.

It became obvious with his latest gambit – his effort to deny Memphians the right to self-determination by requiring a vote of the suburbs (and next we’re sure that he’ll want the consolidation rules where it has to pass separately in both places).  It was yet another racially-motivated action in a season when white suburban politicians seem clearly annoyed by the audacity of a majority black city (also the majority for the entire county) to act as if they have the right to control their own futures.

It strikes directly at the heart of the sense of superiority that runs to the heart of suburban Republican politics.   It is but a brand of plantation mentality that is slow to dissolve  by people hanging on by their fingernails to the belief that white people should decide what happens in a majority black county.

It’s an unseemly violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which is intended to act on the promise of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.”  Of course, the 14th Amendment is already under attack by Republicans pandering to the extremist rhetoric of Tea Partiers who suggest that somehow only they know what the Constitutional really means (it used to be only the Bible).  Mr. Norris calls the possibility of a referendum surrendering the charter of Memphis City Schools a “hostile takeover,” but he’s just playing to the cheap seats.  We’ve never seen a hostile takeover by a company that surrenders its corporate charter first.

Fighting Fairness

It’s become clear as we listen to the county cabal that they believe that all men are created equal, but they are a little more equal than anyone else.   Particularly when it comes to a vote – they believe it’s fair that they have a veto over government consolidation and now they want to stick their thumb in the eye of Memphis yet again.

How else can you explain the idea that voters outside Memphis should be allowed to vote on the dissolution of a Memphis-only school district?

How else can you explain Mr. Norris’s antebellum belief that the white minority in Shelby County should always have a pocket veto over anything the black majority wants to do?

How else can you explain the notion by Mr. Norris that he should be able to deny the most precious right in a democracy – the right to vote – from Memphians?

What makes Mr. Norris think that his birth right grants him the power to yank Memphians’ right to self-determination and become the equivalent of George Wallace standing in the voting place door?

Unequal Protection

We’ve already sent in our contribution to the legal fund to take him and others to court for violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

What’s amazing in this day and time is that this paternal exercise of superiority that stems from Memphians taking steps to do what they have a legal right to do.  And it tells you a lot about the Norris brand of politics that if he can’t get his way through persuasion and influence, he’ll just change the rules in the middle of the game.

We often wonder if anyone outside Memphis has ever looked at demographic trends in Shelby County.   We live in a county where more than two-thirds of all families have no children in public school, and we also live in a county that will be majority African-American in 15-20 years.

So, for those who support the pandering of Mr. Norris and other suburban politicians, why not just go ahead and pack up and move away now?  After all, if you’re scared of African-American children becoming part of a single district with your Caucasian kids, you’re simply living in the wrong county.  The tide of history will eventually overwhelm you.  If you go ahead and move, at least those of us who are left know we’re willing to roll up our sleeves and work together to move this county ahead.

The Me Generation

On November 4 off last year, Mr. Norris crowed about the Republican tsunami that swept majorities into  the U.S. Congress and Tennessee Legislature, saying that “values trump tradition.”  With his legislative gambit, he proves how serious he was.  Apparently, some of those traditions that fall victim to his values are the right to vote, majority rule, and playing by the rules.

In that same post on his website, Mr. Norris said it’s time “to let the people’s voice be heard.”  We assume he only meant the voices of people who look like him.   Such is the gap between rhetoric and reality.

We are told that Mr. Norris fudged the truth about his plans when he briefed Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell about them.   There are some suburban politicos that aren’t pleased with Mayor Luttrell’s announced intention to act as an honest broker in the current school controversy,  so it would be no surprise if the kind of behavior that is common place in the Capitol was being practiced here by Mr. Norris, whose game-playing is well-known in the Shelby County legislative circles.

Short Memory

Norris has said that he has been motivated in life by “an intense desire to help people… My mother was widowed when I was very young. I saw the unscrupulous attempt to gain unfair advantage at her expense on more than one occasion..”

He couldn’t have better described what he’s trying to do to Memphians.  Apparently, the lesson about unscrupulous attempts to gain unfair advantage applies to everybody but him.