This legislature and this legislative session will go down in history as a vicious attack on our youth—especially youth of color—who are simply advocating for a more just, inclusive, and caring world. This generation has such enormous passion, power, and talent and that is precisely why state leaders want to reign them in.
If anything, legislators are doing the opposite, pushing them away.
As recently issued by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2023) we should be focusing instead on addressing issues of sadness, violence, and suicidal ideation that so many of our youth are currently experiencing. These anti-youth campaigns weigh heavily on them and while that is exactly the point, this shouldn't be. Why not consider the value and virtue of a multiethnic and multiracial democracy?
Personally and professionally, I feel strongly committed to the idea that a just and caring economy and society expresses and maintains its support for its children and youth. Sadly, this is a leadership that is devouring them—or at least, is attempting to do so.
Ah, but I remember in this moment of pathos in Texas Republicans' anti-diversity agenda for those of us who have to bear the brunt of it:
“They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds.”
-Angela Valenzuela
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). CDC report shows concerning increases in sadness and exposure to violence among teen girls and LGBQ+ youth.
How George Floyd-inspired activism backfired in Texas, fueling a crackdown on protesters
Three years after Floyd was murdered by a police officer, Texas lawmakers tout anti-protester laws and expanded legal protections for law enforcement.
Demonstrators yell the name of George Floyd whose death sparked protests throughout
the country, in Willis, Wednesday, June 3, 2020. Approximately 130 people attended the rally.
Gustavo Huerta/Staff photographer
Three years after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer, Floyd's legacy has essentially been reversed in Texas. Instead of pushing for more oversight of police, Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans are cracking down on large protests and strengthening legal protections for officers who do wrong.
“I think we are in legislative hell,” said Ashton P. Woods, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter in Houston. “This is basically them weaponizing our work against us.”
In the days and weeks after Floyd, a longtime Houston resident, was killed by police in Minneapolis, Republicans and Democrats nationwide called for laws to keep bad cops off the street and for better training to prevent a repeat of what happened to Floyd.
While Texas did pass one law aimed at preventing police from using chokeholds on suspects like the one used on Floyd, other reforms regulating use of force, strengthening law enforcement misconduct reporting or ending police immunity protections have all hit dead ends.
Instead, the bulk of the legislation passed since Floyd’s death has been focused on targeting the people who spent the summer of 2020 protesting in nearly every major city in Texas.
Since then, Gov. Greg Abbott has:
- Signed a bill into law allowing felony charges for protesters who obstruct emergency vehicles from using highways and major roads
- Enacted another law that makes it a felony to use fireworks or laser pointers to obstruct police during a protest
- Last month called for the pardon of a man who shot and killed a Black Lives Matter activist during protests in Austin in 2020. Both men were armed
The shift is partially a reaction to a national increase in homicides and other violent crimes since the pandemic. In 2020, homicides across the country spiked with a 29-percent increase as a number of large cities — including Chicago and New York — recorded increases greater than 50 percent. In Texas, all major cities except Dallas saw homicides increase again from 2020 to 2021.
Speaking at a ceremony honoring fallen officers on Sunday in Austin, Abbott touted the restrictions on protesters as evidence of his strong support for law enforcement.
"We passed a law to criminalize the conduct of protesters who harm or disrupt law enforcement officers in the line of duty," Abbott said. "We will not tolerate that in the state of Texas."
Now, the Republican-led Texas Legislature is trying to pass legislation to protect officers from legal action when they use Taser stun guns or bean bag projectiles that can cause serious injuries. That comes after police in Austin last year were indicted for using bean bag rounds that caused life-long injuries for some protesters.
State Sen. Drew Springer, a Republican from Cooke County near the Oklahoma border, said law enforcement officers need better legal protection when using nonlethal force as they respond to dangerous situations. He said right now, a lot of officers will just use their guns because the rules and protections are more clear-cut than when they use Taser pistols or other less lethal weapons.
In Austin in 2020, as the protesters marched to the police station, he said officers were using the bean-bag rounds as instructed by their commanding officers and couldn’t have known the rounds they were using were actually defective and would cause more damage than normal. About three dozen protesters were treated at Austin hospitals during more than a week of protests.
“To be held criminally liable for that is wrong,” Springer said.
His bill, SB 2593, passed the Texas Senate last week and now goes to the Texas House.
Furthermore, the call of protesters to “Defund the Police” has turned into a rallying point for Republicans who passed laws in 2021 to punish cities and counties that reduce law enforcement funding in any way. The new law triggered a high-stakes accounting battle between Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar, a Republican, and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat earlier this year.
The Democrat won in that case. Hegar accused the county of cutting its law enforcement budget but later dropped his attack as Hidalgo and others pointed to how law enforcement funding was actually increasing. Hegar in April rescinded the charge.
'They're mad at protesters'
Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020, when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned him to the ground with a knee to the neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd gasped, "I can't breathe."
Chauvin was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for murder.
While there was widespread outrage for how Floyd was killed that sparked bipartisan calls for police and criminal justice reform, State Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, said that is largely gone now in the Republican-led Texas Legislature.
“Now we’re having this backlash to George Floyd empathy,” Miles said.
Miles said the tough-on-crime agenda has left no room to even talk about the Floyd case.
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said instead of “smart crime” programs to get people out of jail and back into society, the Republican political leadership in Texas is all about raising criminal penalties and locking people away for longer to send a tough-on-crime message.
Whitmire said he’s always approached those issues from the perspective that “you lock up people you’re afraid of, not people you’re mad at.”
But he said that philosophy is falling on deaf ears in the Legislature.
“They want to lock up everyone,” he said. “They’re mad at the protesters. They don’t like their position on the issues.”
Woods, the Black Lives Matter activist, said it goes beyond criminal justice and police reforms. He said recent political fights over critical race theory in classrooms and diversity, equity and inclusion programs on Texas college campuses all ramped up after protesters inspired by Floyd took to the streets to end systemic racism in Texas.
That hasn't stopped Black Lives Matter from staying active in Houston and around the state. They continue to do community organizing and participate in rallies for racial justice.
“They’re criminalizing us further for speaking out against the injustices that they are inflicting upon us,” Woods said. “So you want us to be silent while you put your foot on our throat? None of us is going to stand for that.”
jeremy.wallace@houstonchronicle.com
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