The right is using Covid-19 to steal, smear civil rights language, legacy

Bad enough that the Covid-19 pandemic is striking down African-Americans with disproportionately cruel suffering and death.

Add to that the smug insensitivity by various voices on the right - from armed 'protesters' to powerful corporations - who would justify their #MeFirst politics by hijacking the language and legacy of the civil rights movement.

* No, banks that won't lend to oil companies which want to risk destroying the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - especially when there is a worldwide oil glut and renewable energy development offers cleaner options - - are not practicing "redlining."

Trump’s energy chief: Banks are "redlining" oil and gas investments

More here:

Since last December, five of America’s six biggest banks — Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citi, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan — have announced they won’t directly finance new oil and gas development in the Arctic. This includes specifically the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

For the record, redlining was the systematic denial by the private sector and public officials of residential lending to African-Americans which enforced segregation and multiple levels of unequal opportunities from housing to employment to schools, and so on.

A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America

* And, no, people brandishing assault rifles, confederate flags and signs demanding immediate haircuts - or tap beers where they might be DWI (Drinking While Infected) - are not the 2020 reincarnation of the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks 



and other brave Americans who fought for the right to vote, attend public schools, ride public transportation and, yes, buy homes and rent apartments without redlining discrimination.

The audacity of those comparing 'open up' protesters to Rosa Parks

This ignorance about American history, and the way American law has been used as a tool to repress and disadvantage minority citizens, is not limited to ignorant banner-wavers or self-interested company executives.

Look no further than a sitting Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice who used a fatuous and ill-informed description of the Governor's pandemic-fighting stay-at-home orders to conjure the US Army's roundup and imprisonment of more than 117,000 American citizens of Japanese heritage for nearly four years durng World War II. 

I think Forrest Gump should get the last word when it comes to Justice Rebecca Bradley, ir those who would abuse Rosa Park's good name, or make out Big Oil as today's redlining victims:

"Stupid is as stupid does."