Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.
I was going to say "I am shocked, shocked! Well, not that shocked." until I read this. Jesus Christ, I'm legitimately shocked.
Jesus Christ, I’m legitimately shocked.
Why? This is genuinely pretty fucking tame for Mississippi.
Guess I live too far north. I thought living in a rural area meant I got the 'privilege' of seeing some terrible modern racism, but I guess I'm not even seeing the big leagues out here.
Aside from maybe Haiti, Mississippi is by far the most dangerous place in the western hemisphere to be a black person. Don't look into it unless you want your whole week ruined.
Absolutely fucked.
This quote really is the icing on this turd of a story:
“He went through a total of five attorneys prior to me meeting them last year, and they pretty much took his money. We ran into some big law firms who were supposed to help and they kind of misled him,”
This country is a goddamn pyramid scheme, and everybody's selling.
Here the PayPal donate link from the article. I threw them $20.
That’s pathetic. The town elected him as mayor. Let him do his job!
The town didn't actually have an election.
No elections in the last 60 years. It's just been old white men trading the office of mayor around to their children when they die or get tired of it.
And no one in the community actually knew who the mayor was, well, none of the black residents knew, because the mayor and city hall never let them vote.
So, Patrick Braxton got fed up with the situation and filed the paperwork to run for mayor, and since the previous mayor had never bothered with any paperwork, Braxton won by default. The only person in the last 60 years to actually run for mayor instead of being appointed by their father.
Braxton is also a volunteer firefighter, and the only member of the force who responds to fires at black people's houses.
The article is a wild ride. The white population of the town just seem to be caricatures of racism and bigotry.
😡 that's feudalism
Yes, it happened in the US.
I feel like the firefighters who refused to help with the fire or go to the heart attack victim's house should be criminally prosecuted at the least and should definitely lose their jobs.
A lot of firefighters are volunteers. I have no idea about this case but maybe they would try to use that as a defense, if so.
Side note, it's utterly baffling that such an essential function basically runs off of charity. What a joke.
Volunteer firefighters have no legal obligation to respond to a call. Even if it's the house next door.
Neat thing I learned when researching this: Some states (like Oklahoma) have laws on the books that state that volunteer firefighters "who are called to fight fires are not required to use any accrued leave or make up any time due to the performance of their volunteer firefighter duties."
Doesn't mean they'll continue to get paid while they're working fires but at least they won't have to make up hours or lose vacation over it 🤷
It's insane to me as a non-American that a) one of the most critical jobs employ lots of people without paying them and b) that person has no responsibility to actually do that critical job.
What if surgeons decided they don't want to operate on someone because they just don't feel like it or like the person? Society is usually built on trust the in an emergency you can count on others.
Honestly it feels really scrummy that people who do firefighting might not be paid.
Want more rage? In my community in East Tennessee, I don't have municipal fire service.
There's a private for-profit fire department that "serves" me. I have to pay a yearly subscription fee to them. Granted, it's not expensive, but it's the principle - Why the fuck do I have to pay for something that, everywhere else, is covered by taxes?
Now... I can choose not to pay the subscription fee. And that's fine. If I have a fire or need to be cut out of a car, they'll still respond and still do whatever needs doing. But then they send a bill for $2000 per hour per apparatus that responds to the call, billed from the moment they leave the station to when they pull back in. So if I have a car wreck and the car catches fire, I can expect a bill for $2000/hour for each of a rescue truck, a pump truck, and a tank truck, assuming they don't send two rescue trucks for some reason.
That's $6000/hr, and they scene may be active for two or three hours. That's $12,000 - $18,000 dollars BEFORE we even start talking about our garbage predatory healthcare system. Do I need an airlift to the trauma center? Whoa buddy... That's a minimum of $20,000 before they even start the engine on the damned thing. Plus, the helicopter doesn't take off from accident scene, so I'll need ambulance transport to the aircraft LZ, so that's another $2,000. But it's okay, because the air evac company has a subscription plan too, and as long as I pay them my protection money every year, they won't ruin my life if I have an accident.
I'm SOO FUCKING TIRED of this shithole profit-driven country.
Here's what I don't get... town is 85% black and only has 275 people.
That means a 234 to 41 split black to white. 5.7:1 ratio.
If those 41 people really are that racist and regressive, you haul them all out of their homes, tar and feather them, and ride them out of town on a rail.
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"systemic racism isn't real" Counterpoint:
If that's not a case for him NEEDING to be Mayor I don't know what is. This timeline is fucking horrifying.
This is so cartoonishly evil I have a hard time believing it’s real in 2023.
Believe it. The Civil Rights era was only about 58 years ago. People from that era are still alive to tell the tale.
I was in Selma recently, to see the Edmund Pettus Bridge where John Lewis and his foot soldiers began their march to Montgomery. Not only is the bridge named after a grand dragon of the KKK, but the town is boarded up, the museum & store at the park memorializing the event look abandoned (even though they're not) and aren't reliably open, and the park is falling apart and overgrown.
This is one of the most iconic events in civil rights history and that's the state of its memorial. We saw carloads of black folks from all over the south roll up, try the doors, look at the memorial, and leave. They can barely experience their own history here, where such a powerful event happened.
Selma itself is much like the town in this article, overwhelming majority black, but no money in the black community, and a small, wealthy, powerful white population. The memorial has to be run by volunteers. The white folks won't contribute. They'll put up confederate monuments with private money if you ask them to.
The line about the officials claiming qualified immunity really makes me angry. Qualified immunity is such garbage. The actual law says they can be used, but the courts made up qualified immunity so they could ignore it.
You mean a state run by Republicans that gerrymanders to make sure black people are underrepresented has a horrifyingly racist rural town?
This is the sort of thing conservatives conserve.
Genuinely horrifying. The firefighters not responding - and actively preventing the fighting of fires near black peoples homes. Disgusting.
For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town. Instead, the mantle has been treated as a “hand me down” by the small percentage of white residents, according to several residents Capital B interviewed. After being the only one to submit qualifying paperwork and statement of economic interests, Braxton became the mayor.
That last part is kind of significant. I don't doubt there's a racial component here but I also think anyone that just assumed an office through paperwork would face resistance in a small town.
The town has a total of 30 white residents, the other 89% are People of Color.
“At one point, we didn’t even know who the mayor was,” Ballard recalls. “If you knew somebody and you was white, and your grandfather was in office when he died or got sick, he passed it on down to the grandson or son, and it’s been that way throughout the history of Newbern.”
Yeah that's a monarchy. And those folks probably call themselves "patriots". And they probably claim systematic racism doesn't exist either while being the dictionary definition of it.
As a northerner from a top 50 MSA, I have to say that I thought these towns only existed in quirky lifetime movies and black sketch comedy shows depicting comically absurd stereotypes of racist backwards towns. I mean wtf! Really?!
True, but if no one is running thats just their own fault at that point.
For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town
anyone that just assumed an office through paperwork would face resistance in a small town.
It sounds like there was no resistance to assuming office through paperwork for at least 60 years before this, when the assumees were all white.
Err... the first sentence that you quoted directly refutes what you said.
If there hasn't been an election for 60+ years in the town, that means everyone has "assumed office through paperwork." He's the only one that's faced resistance. This is entirely a result of racism. Don't pretend otherwise.
This is so sad and infuriating.
For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town. Instead, the mantle has been treated as a “hand me down”
Well this seems like the problem right here lol. Can't the federal government intervene and force the state to actually hold elections?
Also with that population split - 85% black people - how on earth does what has happened there make sense? How can a town that is overwhelmingly black be being controlled by a small handful of racist white people?
As a white ex-FF, now Paramedic. I'd be glad to jump on Mr.Braxton's fire truck for a response and hand him the keys to Town Hall when we get back to the station. Disgusting, pathetic, and embarrassing display of humanity.
If you did, the next call would very likely be your house. Lots of precedent for it in that shithole state.
It's crazy that this kinda shit is normalized, and I didn't bat an eye, however I am frustrated that humans are this gross. Everything I hate about myself, my biology, that i fight to excise, is paraded and celebrated by these kinds of people.
Well. That's some fucked up shit. These past 10+ years have been real eye opening to just how much racism is still around.
I am genuinely surprised our recently former president didn't say the N word during his presidency.
So that was horrifying.
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