Missouri Rep. Bruce Franks (D), a Ferguson activist-turned-state representative, announced Friday that he is resigning his seat, saying that he “can’t heal from the trauma and survive at the epicenter any longer.”
I think a lot of us empathize. I can’t imagine what kind of stress and frustration Rep. Franks must have been experiencing.
There’s got to be a lot more to this story.
…the rage-filled nights of protests, injuries and arrests that followed have fundamentally changed America in the half-decade since, in real ways. Those include:
• Exposing widespread, monetized abuse of poor minorities by entire local criminal justice systems.
• Transforming cellphone-wielding civilian bystanders of police conflict into conveyors of news.
• Changing the way the federal government interacts with local police officials, on issues as disparate as availability of surplus military equipment to methods of gathering crime data.
• Spurring a vigorous debate from police union halls to the halls of academia over whether police aggression deters or aggravates violence.
I’d get tired too.
I can’t thank Representative Franks enough for his service to our country.
what is most telling is (what sounds to me like) his denunciation of the Democratic party establishment…
To the media that will refuse to report the truth or find value in attacking effective black representation while hired and pushed by the ineffective black representation🖕🏿. To those leaders that look like me but perpetuate the same systemic oppression we fight against every🖕🏿. To the white progressives who call them selves allies but don’t see the value of Black spaces, black representation or lived experience from black struggle…
There are clear echos of Ayanna Pressley’s speech to the Netroots Nation gathering last weekend, in which she said “If you’re not prepared to come to that table and represent that voice, don’t come, because we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice”
and I say Good on both of them…and the rest of the Squad as well.
I think you’re being a little unfair to the “Democratic Party”, but my comment isn’t to debate or disagree with yours. I’m with you. Ditto re The Squad. Hopefully, I can add another thought.
He is right in saying that, but I claim, unless you’re black, it’s very, very hard to really understand what he means. That’s not to argue that “you have to be black to sing the blues.” It’s also not to say that racism wins because no one can “truly” know the life and experiences of another. Expand that out to genetics, race, gender, and, yes, there’s obvious similarities between people and differences between groups of people.
Though only the non-science, white race seems to affirm it’s scientifically-proven, genetic superiority.
I contend that African-Americans have just as much trouble “understanding” white people who struggle with this issue. It’s very hard, and I think that’s really what his comment is directed to.
Not singling out progressives — reference The Color Purple — but plenty of well-meaning whites take the opinion that they’ve “always been nice to you people” and they don’t have slaves. That’s not it.
That’s not just an insult to the descendants of former slaves, but it’s an insult to African-Americans and all immigrant Americans who accept this land as their own in large part because of the ideal of e pluribus unum. We are one. Even white Irish and Italian assholes like Kellyann.
I suggest it’s hard for all. Especially those trying to do the right thing, while stealing a bit of time for the pursuit of happiness : - ) I think that’s what the representative is saying. Would love to hear your thoughts.
I’m making a selfish decision
Not in my book, he’s not.
By his service as an activist, and in public office, he has already shown himself to be exceptionally unselfish.
I am sad that his environment has been so hostile but he doesn’t need to prove anything.
Pervasive cynicism and venality tends to do this to idealists.
that’s why I said “Democratic Party establishment”. (don’t get me started on how the white Dem establishment co-opted the [at-the-time, necessarily] monolithic black political establishment, and how its people like the Squad and its allies who are taking on that obsolete power structure…)
Sorry, but there is more than enough anti-semitic, homophobic, and (thanks to trump) anti-hispanic bias within the black community for them to “understand” the struggle against prejudice the same way white people do. They understand it from both ends, unlike most white people.
So your parents, spouse children and two other relatives were killed. What are they up to these days?
Hate to say it, but I agree — with very good reason, I’ve just grown way too cynical and skeptical to take this kind of thing at face value. I fully expect a scandal of some sort to come out. Don’t know who, don’t know what, don’t know if he would be the perpetrator or the victim, but there’s always more. Just like with the whole Ferguson incident itself, actually, with all that destruction and ruin spurred by blatant lies from the “eyewitnesses,” and just like all the crackpot conspiracy theories that have sprung up since. The whole thing is a mess.
And the claimed explanation for the resignation is just a word salad.
Oh, I’m well aware of that. I regularly interact with some African-Americans who support some of what Trump says and does. Obviously, they are aren’t white supremacists, so there’s a lot there : - )
To me.
And naturally, it took about 5 minutes of searching to find that the advent of his claims of stress and mental health issues just happened to coincide with an investigation by the local media into allegations of improprieties by Franks in connection with a jobs program and time records. The investigation remains ongoing.
Local media reports that Franks claims his resignation is just coincidental. 
“Heal from the trauma” my shiny metal ass.
It must have been systemic oppression and trauma that caused him to falsify records and fleece taxpayers of money, I guess. Viva la revolucion!
Good Christ of the Holy Cynicism, it’s hard being right all the time.
***EDIT TO ADD: Oh, it gets even better — Rep. Franks apparently owes a ton of back child support, too. Can’t have your state pay garnished if you quit your only source of income, I guess. Despicable.
Such a burden… rofl… thanks!
Sincerely.
But Paul assured us upthread that it’s all the fault of “the Democratic party establishment”.
Don’t you understand that it’s always the fault of “the Democratic party establishment”?
Save your evidence and empirical data for the Pelosibots, you Fact-Based Cultist!
See my edit. It must certainly be Pelosi’s fault that Franks owes huge amounts of back child support, too. And I’m guessing it’s the Corporatist Dems’ fault that he’s resigning just in time to avoid garnishment of his wages. How very brave and noble of him.
“To the white progressives who call them selves allies but don’t see the value of Black spaces, black representation or lived experience from black struggle …”
And the BidenBros always demand that we fall in line. Screw them.
I suspect this isn’t what @thunderclapnewman had in mind, but…
“If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
By making politics as nasty as possible, folks like Charles Koch & Karl Rove hope to drive all decent people out of politics and thereby increase their own power. If the political arena can be converted into a vicious sewer, the only people who will endure swimming through it are those being rewarded handsomely for their trouble.
The only people being rewarded handsomely for entering politics are the bought-and-paid-for agents of the wealthy.
Franks’ resignation is the terrorists winning.
White supremacist terrorists made him falsify records and not pay child support?