Civil Rights Legend John Lewis
If someone would have told me that a black civil rights icon and legend would be visiting my hometown to pander for black votes for a white woman who has never never stood up to or in any way denounced civil rights abuses of blacks and Latinos by police, I would have told them they were out of their fucking mind.
Well, if someone would have told me that, they would have been right.
Because that's exactly what happened.
Wednesday evening, civil rights legend John Lewis, who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and who is featured in one of my favorite films, "Selma", came to my hometown of Rochester, NY.
But Lewis didn't come to address the fact that Rochester is ranked as one of the poorest cities in America, with a child poverty rate of 42 percent, more than twice the U.S. National average.
And Lewis didn't come to denounce the Rochester, NY Police Department's long disturbing history of profiling, abusing and in some cases, executing innocent blacks and Latinos.
Nope.
Instead John Lewis, or Representative John Lewis, came to Rochester, NY to get black votes for New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, whose 28th District is based in Rochester, NY, and who is up for reelection this November.
Ironically, Slaughter, who has held office since 1987, has never stood up to or in any way denounced police abusing and killing innocent minorities.
The very same issues John Lewis experienced first-hand and fought against.
I know first hand just who Louise Slaughter, a career politician, really is.
In fact, in the 1990's, when my dad Mario Vara fell into a deep depression, after the Rochester, NY Police Department retaliated against him, for his outspoken activism against police abuse, I wrote several letters to Louise Slaughter, pleading with her to intervene in the Rochester Police Department's harassment and intimidation of my dad.
Louise Slaughter never replied.
My Dad committed suicide just two months after my last letter to Louise Slaughter.
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter
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