Newly-elected Tennessee State Rep. London Lamar, D-Memphis, said she merely summed up the thoughts and feelings of her constituents when she scolded white Tennessee Republicans as supposedly racist and uneducated.
As The Tennessee Star reported, Lamar livestreamed her remarks during a 15-minute Facebook video last week. She removed the video from Facebook a few days later after it got attention she apparently didn’t want.
The Star broke this story past weekend. The story has since gone viral worldwide, with Newsweek citing The Star’s work. FOX News, The British Daily Mail, CBS News, and The Washington Post, among many others, also did their own follow-ups.
On Tuesday, Lamar took to her personal and professional Facebook pages to address The Star’s articles concerning her.
“What was called a rant is actually a statistical analysis of the midterm elections based on my numerous years of political experience. After a review of the numbers after the midterm election, I felt the need to record a Facebook live video to discuss the numbers from both Tennessee and nationwide,” Lamar said.
“My comments did not intend to make a generalization about every white person who voted Republican. The truth about a large number of those who responded with their vote for Republican candidates this election cycle is, they voted in response to the racially charged rhetoric that has come from our President.”
Lamar said as an elected official she is the voice of her community, whom she described as mostly poor, black, and female.
Most of the people who commented on her two posts said they concurred with Lamar’s statement.
“I stand with you London. You told the truth,” said John Jackson, listed as a resident of Atlanta, Ga., although he is not one of Lamar’s constituents.
Marcquesa Bufkin, whose city or town of residence was unlisted, told Lamar there was “No need to apologize about facts!”
Memphis City Council member Myron Lowery, meanwhile told Lamar “Its your responsibility to represent your constituents!”
In her Facebook posts, however, Lamar apologized for what she called “an overgeneralization of white people.”
“However, we must not discount the election day data,” Lamar said.
“We live in a state that is very racially polarized. When you look at the needs of rural west, middle and east, the democratic values speaks to their needs. I sincerely desire for the great state of Tennessee to give the democratic values a chance to work for all people.”
According to The Washington Times, when asked if she truly believes Tennessee is racist, Lamar said this:
“I think Tennessee has people who may identify with rhetoric that leans towards that way and I think we are a very racially polarized state.”
Last week’s video was apparently published on London’s Facebook page last Wednesday morning, and taken down on Friday after the first Star story was published. The Star retrieved the video, however, and published a story, still up, that contains the video on Saturday.
“Looking here at Tennessee, let’s just call a spade a spade,” Lamar said in the video, beginning at the 2:01 mark.
“Tennessee is racist, period. Period. And if you for one moment thought that white people in Tennessee were going to leave their own to jump over here and give us more access, they just told you last night it’s not happening,” Lamar continued. (emphasis added)
Lamar went on to say more than 60 to 70 percent of white Tennessee men voted Republican in last week’s election.
“Obviously, that is a particular base of people who believe in superiority. They don’t believe in sharing their wealth. They don’t believe in sharing resources. They believe that you need to work for your own, and they went to the polls and voted,” Lamar added.
Later in the video, at the 5:10 mark, Lamar said “most of the people in Tennessee who voted Republican are uneducated.”
“This is no different than 1968. The only difference is they can’t necessarily, like, hang us by a noose or outwardly kick us out of restaurants or things like that, but they are still exercising their right to vote and they are still supporting candidates who openly express they will suppress our community,” Lamar continued.
As reported, on the video, Lamar, among other things, reprimanded white men for wanting to keep more of the money they earn. Lamar also suggested allowing felons to vote will help elect more Democrats.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “London Lamar” by londonlamar.com.
[…] The Tennessee Star reported last year, Lamar made national headlines when she went on a Facebook livestream and scolded white Tennessee […]
Racsim is very strong in Tennessee time for change1
Wow, I sure hope you have a sensible opponent running against you in the next election. Running unopposed doesn’t mean your right for the job, and lady, you have issues.
[…] earned international attention after The Tennessee Star reported the story of her Facebook video rant calling white Tennessee Republicans racist and […]
The left does this constantly, following one of their political gurus:
“Accuse your opponent of what only you are doing, as you are doing it, to create confusion, cloud the issue, and inoculate voters against any evidence of your guilt.” –Saul Alinsky
They accuse conservatives of the bigotry and prejudice they practice.
Postmodern drivel … over and over ..again and again … repeat regurgitate …
One of the most common tactics of postmodernists is to accuse people of being racist. These accusations are not made in good faith: for example, many of the people they call racist are certainly not racist by any common-sense definition of the word.These accusations are a bullying and silencing tactic used to put their intellectual opponents on the defensive and discourage others from speaking up.
Any attempt to have dialogue and one will be accused of derailing the conversation . What rises above all, is feelings over facts. The use of “I believe” spoken as sacrosanct is a primary example.
The legitimacy of someone’s ideas is based on their (lack of) privilege and their level of oppression (definitions/perceptions are modified to fit/promote the agenda). Most times, it seems as if this is a competition .. maybe the ‘Oppression Olympics’.
Also, not surprising to see mention of “1968” … Yawn .. how banal.
Her provocations are empty words without substantive validity that fall flat when there is no audience to receive them. Do not feed this.
The 70% of white males that voted republican are racist but the 90+% of blacks that vote for dems each year are not huh?
As to her education, she went to St. Mary’s in Notre Dame IN which has an acceptance rate of 80%. Her education is top notch!
Very interesting she used the phrase “Call a Spade a Spade”, considering that “a spade” is a reference to a person “that’s blacker than the ace of spades”.
Just out of curiosity, where did she get her “voter data”? Exit polls? Phone calls to potential voters? I don’t think there is any metadata showing the race, sex, or income of the individual voter in the ballot system.
If this girl had done her research over the past fifty years, she would have noticed a particular trend of Tennessee becoming more and more Republican. Another piece of research she seems to have missed is the actual percentages of the Tennessee population broken down by race. She seems to have missed that Tennessee, on average, is only about 1/4th “Black”. Nationwide, only 12.4% of Americans self-identified as “black” in the 2010 census. Shelby county has the highest concentration of “black” folks, with nearly 30% of it’s population “black”, and having roughly 1/6 of Tennessee’s total population.
Her video is the result of an “echo chamber” effect of not being able to see beyond the city limits. The culture of rural Tennessee is very different then the urban one, focusing more on self-reliance and a lack of government interference over the urban clutching to the government.
What do you expect from a city where the infant mortality was described as “third world.”
I repeat my comment to the earlier article:
“Notice how there is not one mention in her entire presentation on self-improvement – doing better in school, developing marketable skills, establishing a strong nuclear family, acting responsibly, avoiding drugs and alcohol, subscribing to a moral code – not one mention. Instead, it’s all about victimhood and self-imposed dependency. In her worldview, her “community” is on the right track, they’re just victims of racism.
She, along with her fellow race-baiting totalitarians, want one thing, and one thing only: power. She wants to keep a large segment of the population on the urban plantation, a population entirely dependent on the largess she can provide by stealing from the productive elements in our society. What she fears most of all is a shift in attitude toward self-reliance, prosperity gained through dint of honest work and self-improvement, and the self-esteem that results.
Governor-elect Lee presented a straight-forward unifying theme throughout his campaign, one that transcends the divisiveness of race, sex, and/or political partisanship, and that is this: what (responsible, moral) people want are three things – a good job, a good education for their children, and a safe neighborhood. He also characterizes Tennessee as being a rural state with a few large cities – the rural counties need to recognize that opportunity and draw investment and development away from the urban centers of power and wealth. That, in turn, will determine the degree of success that his platform will realize. Coincident with that success will be the further marginalization of people like Representative-elect Lamar.
Now, miracles happen. She could shift her mindset away from dependency and toward developing self-reliance, morality, and prosperity for her self-declared “community.” I, for one, would be delighted if she did, all of Tennessee would benefit. But that’s not my responsibility, it’s hers, and that of the “community” she represents. She has an opportunity to develop and promote that agenda through leadership. Based on what she had to say on the video here, I’m not holding my breath.”
WOW, where do I start…..
1. Republican voters should abandon their party and support the liberal agenda even if it goes against their moral, and religious freedom or they’re racist.
2. Black unemployment being at an all time low shouts racist rhetoric from president Trump whose policies has generated those jobs.
3. Your years of political experience, you don’t have. Years of hate, protest, activism maybe, but obviously very little politics.
4. Your constituent’s oppression hasn’t been charged by Republican voters, but by the likes of Cohen and the liberals who feel that controlling the population by welfare and government assistance is somehow the best thing for you because you’re too ignorant to rise up. Sounds like racism to me…
4. The only people being kicked out of restaurants and hung by your proverbial noose, are republicans who are actually trying to save this country from socialism and or communism leadership.
5. Any white, black, red,yellow, or green man who doesn’t want to keep as much of his money that he can, is well, an idiot who is probably incapable of making money to begin with.
5. You call it a spade Lamar, I call your agenda socialist. You’re not a Martin Luther King Jr. supporter. He would encourage equality through hard work instead of handouts. You’re actually more in line with Farrakhan.
How in Gods name did you get elected. You talk about being a racist. Look in the mirror and you will see a big one. You are truly a disgrace and only make things worse.
You know I’m from Ohio A retired teacher. That post from Lamar is truly disgusting. It never surprises me to see that kind of stuff. Another Obama. Keep it up.
If her constituents feel this way and I feel like in Memphis a large percentage do feel this way – Memphis is doomed. To elect someone like this is a disgrace, I hope that something can be done about this racist before she is put in office. What an embarrassment for Tennessee.