Here's Mayor John Giles with his wife-and-family in the back of an old pick-up truck that he used in a re-election campaign.
It's driven by his son-in-law and business-partner in a private law practice to settle claims for personal injuries and accidents.
The Grand Marshall of the Martin Luther King Day Parade walked-on-foot in front of them heading down Center Street.
In the driver's seat: Mark Freeman, 31-year Fire Captain
Seated to his left: David Luna, 27-year veteran MPS
On-board:
Kevin Thompson, Jeremy Whittaker, Jennifer Duff and Francisco Heredia
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It wasn't all happy-day time all over again for just a short time. This story came out:
On Monday, Arizona Republicans showed casual contempt and a dismissive attitude towards racial equality, and the public in Mesa, AZ saw it.
The East Valley Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade and Festival is a public-private partnership, with the City of Mesa officially involved in organizing and sponsoring the event. I will post photographs later, illustrating the parade as I did for Veterans’ Day, but what I saw, and did not see, prompts me to write before the day is gone.
What follows is a first-hand report from https://ricochet.com/590324/gop-losing-race-by-not-entering/ of the parade: organization, the crowd, parade entrants, and the festival following the parade.
GOP: Losing Race by not Entering
By
The Next part:
Parade Organization:
Unlike the Veterans’ Day parade, where a non-profit group has had primary responsibility for organization and funding over the years, today’s parade was a public-private partnership event.
The City of Mesa takes lead responsibility:
The Crowd:
The crowd looked like Mesa. There were young families and senior citizens. Most of the people who lined the parade route, standing or sitting in folding camp chairs, were white or Hispanic, with apparently more blacks marching in the parade than lining the route. This reflects Arizona’s demographics, . .
The Parade Entrants: [Hit the link for Ricochet above]
Historically black churches were well represented in the parade, still core institutions in community life. Music radio stations were represented, while conservative talk stations were not, differing from the Veterans’ Day radio station contingent. A highlight of this parade, which was not in the most recent East Valley Veterans’ Parade, was a group of Buffalo Soldier reenactors, on foot and mounted.
There was little overt ideological messaging, except for a few hand-crafted signs and a few standard leftist chants. Police officers walked the route shaking hands and giving children “junior police” stickers. The overall atmosphere was positive and celebratory, complemented by a wonderful Arizona January day, shirt sleeves, a few fluffy clouds, and sunshine.
[Blogger Note: after this I just couldn't follow contributor Cliff Brown's thinking or reasoning if there were any of that to start with!]
A Tale of Two Parties:
Witnessing today’s parade, seeing who showed up to march, or set up a booth, and who did not, brought to mind Justice Clarence Thomas’s indictment of the national GOP in My Grandfather’s Son . . .
Brown ends his report like so:
"Laziness leads to losing. You can’t win if you don’t play. The fastest way to lose a race is by not showing up at the starting line."
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About the author:
