Skip to content
Advertisement

The politics of ‘getting it’

Advertisement

In late September during a Sunday afternoon speech at the Edward Kennedy Institute in Boston, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) demonstrated that not all elected White lawmakers are deaf, dumb and blind to what Black folk have been trying to say to them before and especially since the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo.

To wit, she traced racial and economic inequality in the U.S.A. which particularly harmed African Americans, and was very forceful in calling for reform of police and criminal justice procedures.

“None of us can ignore what is happening in this country. Not when our Black friends, family, and neighbors literally fear dying in the streets. This is the reality all of us must confront, as uncomfortable and ugly as that reality may be. It comes to us to once again affirm that Black lives matter, that Black citizens matter, that Black families matter.”

Warren also said in the speech, “Economic justice is not—and has never been—sufficient to ensure racial justice. Owning a home won’t stop someone from burning a cross on the front lawn. Admission to a school won’t prevent a beating on the sidewalk outside. The tools of oppression were woven together, and the civil rights struggle was fought against that oppression wherever it was found—against violence, against the denial of voting rights and against economic injustice.”

And, to Warren, the Black Lives Matter Movement has taken up another page of that continuing struggle.

The speech received high praise from DeRay Mckesson, one of the young leaders of the national group, who had also been invited to Hillary Clinton’s speeches and that of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. Mckesson and his colleagues had not been impressed with comments from any of those three, and had basically decided the three Democratic candidates for president just don’t get it. Mckesson said that,”Sen. Warren’s speech clearly and powerfully calls into question America’s commitment to Black lives by highlighting the role that structural racism has played and continues to play with regard to housing discrimination and voting rights. And Warren, better than any political leader I’ve yet heard, understands the protests as a matter of life or death—that the American dream has been sustained by an intentional violence and that the uprisings have been the result of years of lived trauma.”

Mrs. Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley received boos from the group for inputting the phrase, “All lives matter,” in their speeches. That statement is a truism, but the BLM activists have been trying to make the case that using such a phrase is dismissive of the unique discrimination faced daily by African Americans and especially symbolized by the constancy of brutality against them by law enforcement officers. The BLM activists have disrupted several campaign presentations by all of the Democratic Party hopefuls, but they have essentially left the Republican candidates alone, having decided that the latter are hopeless. It remains to be seen how effective this BLM strategy will be, but they have already made all three Democratic candidates anxious to appease and work with them. The BLM folk are known to have a network of more than a million social media followers and growing. Sen.Warren has provided an unstuttered, unequivocal model for these candidates to follow. The issue is whether any of them will be bold enough to do take advantage of it.

In her speech, which sometimes sounded as if written by one of the BLM leaders themselves, Sen. Warren’s parting words were, “We’ve seen sickening videos of unarmed, Black Americans cut down by bullets, choked to death while gasping for air—their lives ended by those who are sworn to protect them. Peaceful, unarmed protesters have been beaten. Journalists have been jailed. And, in some cities, White vigilantes with weapons freely walk the streets …” “And it’s not just about law enforcement either. Just look to the terrorism this summer at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. We must be honest: 50 years after John Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out, violence against African Americans has not disappeared. We must do something about that and do it now.”

Amen.

Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.

DISCLAIMER: The beliefs and viewpoints expressed in opinion pieces, letters to the editor, by columnists and/or contributing writers are not necessarily those of OurWeekly.

Advertisement

Latest