this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
565 points (98.6% liked)

News

22841 readers
4665 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A Black man who says he was elected mayor of a rural Alabama town but has been kept from taking office by White leaders of the town has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What are you suggesting happened?

I'm suggesting that what happened with this election may have happened in the past.

When he approached Stokes for information about running for mayor, Stokes allegedly gave Braxton "wrong information about how to qualify" for the election, and did not provide public notice to residents about the election.

just weeks after his election, Stokes and his council members Gary Broussard, Jesse Donald Leverett, Voncille Brown Thomas and Willie Richard Tucker allegedly "met in secret to adopt a 'special' election ordinance." Notice of the meeting was not published, and the group set a special election for Oct. 6, 2020.

No notice of that election was ever published, according to the lawsuit. Because the election was not publicized, only Stokes and his council members qualified.

you wrote:

It sounds like everyone has just been completely apathetic to who's running the town, including the 85% black majority.

Does it? It actually sounds like a white minority council bends over backwards to keep themselves in power by ignoring opposition and holding private special elections.

What I mean by "regular" is the kind of election where people go out to vote for one of two or more candidates. Someone winning by default doesn't say much about what the people want, except that they, once again, don't seem to really care.

Don't confuse oppression with apathy.

Stokes and his council allegedly changed the locks for a third time, and according to the lawsuit, Braxton and his council have not had "uninterrupted access" to the building since April 2021. This meant that in November 2022, he could not help set up voting machines for Newbern's most recent election.

They will not let them hold elections. Read the article before you "innocently assume" these people "don't seem to really care".