While You Were Sleeping Steve King was Fired, A Ferguson Black Female Mayor Was Hired & A Racist Mayor’s Statue Removed Amid Ire

Wow…direct action really DOES get the goods!

As tensions raise across the country following the killing of yet another Black man at the hands of police, people are waking up to how various municipalities are responding to it through their governments as a town known for its own racial strife and police brutality elects its first Black and female mayor, the statue of a notorious racist mayor is finally removed in Philadelphia and a nine-term congressperson known for promoting White nationalism and making incendiary remarks is ousted in a primary in his Iowa district.

U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who has served in Congress since 2003 and was seeking his tenth term in office, lost in a five-way primary Tuesday to a challenger that he defeated in 2018 by only two percentage points. Iowa State Senator Randy Feenstra now goes on to the general election in November in his bid to represent a district that is seen as a Republican stronghold. King is considered to be the congressperson most affiliated with White nationalism, among other things once remarking that “(C)ulture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” When asked about those comments, King responded by saying: “you need to teach your children your values” and “with the inter-marriage, I’d like to see an America that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same”. Not only has he continued to make similar remarks during his tenure, he defended and supported far-right European politicians and once appeared with VDARE editor Peter Brimelow on an anti-immigration panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference sponsored by ProEnglish – itself a group whose founder was once affiliated with White nationalist groups. In a January 2019 interview with the New York Times, King defended White nationalism outright saying, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” And of the large increase in representation of minorities and women in the new Democrat-controlled House, he said,  “You could look over there and think the Democratic Party is no country for white men.” This resulted in a rebuke from many political corners, most notably his own Republican Party who had until that point remained silent on his words and actions, but this time the Republican Steering Committee chose to remove him from all House committee assignments. His ouster from Congress came amid fundraising struggles which began after the Republican Party withdrew funding for his campaign in 2018.

Also on Tuesday, Ferguson, Missouri, which became well-known for its own unrest six years ago after police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown and was later after a grand jury chose not to indict the officer, elected City Council Member Ella Jones as the first African American and female mayor in its history. She will succeed James W. Knowles III who has been mayor since 20111 and could not run again due to term limits. Knowles was mayor during the 2014 unrest and defeated Jones in 2017 when she ran against him that year. Ferguson once again saw unrest over the weekend as the police station was besieged by protesters, resulting in damage and arrests.

Sometime after Midnight Wednesday in Philadelphia, the statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo, long a symbol of hatred and bigotry in the city, was removed after 21 years from the steps of the Federal Building across from City Hall by crew members as the National Guard protected them. Rizzo was known for his racist attacks on the Black community in Philadelphia first as a police chief and later as mayor, and when the nationwide protests against the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the statue became even more of a symbol of racial oppression. Three years ago, it was announced that the statue would be moved to a new location, but so little movement was made on that effort that Rizzo supporters planned to hold a celebration at the statue this October to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of his birth. During protests on the Plaza where the statue stood it was defaced and even set on fire. Several attempts to pull it down failed. Meanwhile, a mural of Rizzo was vandalized overnight as the statue was coming down.

*Frank Rizzo has left the chat* pic.twitter.com/Dlqt5ymWuX

— Body by Gritty (@Sleezits) June 3, 2020

And while the Rizzo sculpture was being moved, @PhillyPolice get 911 call thay Frank Rizzo mural in South Philadelphia was vandalized overnight again. There have been severel incidents of paint being tossed on it previously @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/ZjzNedbutv

— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) June 3, 2020

Protests across the country continued throughout the evening, with Providence, Rhode Island being the latest city to see unrest with property damage and 65 persons arrested.