Black organizers who won swing states for Biden/Harris will not be cast aside
Most Hollywood dramas follow a familiar formula. We meet the characters and invest in them, through love or loathing. Conflict emerges and grows over time until the tension reaches a point of climax. Then, like magic, the conflict is resolved in a moment of great triumph or failure, and life is, once again, as it was.
As a presidential aspirant, Donald Trump introduced himself after descending a golden escalator in a tower bearing his name. He immediately staked his campaign on the politics of racial resentment, calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals.” This followed months of unfounded allegations of foreign birth to otherize and demonize the nation’s first Black president.
In this drama, four days of torturous vote counting represented the dramatic peak in the current president’s electoral pursuits, eventfully ending with the projection of a new president-elect. But real life is not a Hollywood picture, and this story is most certainly not that simple.
I have been thinking about the prospects, not for our president- and vice president-elect, but rather for the Black-led movement organizing that secured their victory in major metropolitan areas across the country—Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Phoenix, to name but a few that became national obsessions in the days following November 3. And while St. Louis was not part of that obsession, we can see and feel the work of grassroots organizing and advocacy in our own backyard, whether aimed at decarceration and decriminalization, early childhood education, affordable housing, or fair wages and economic justice.
This movement—decidedly feminist, anti-racist, and anti-corporatist in its values and politics—mobilized tens of millions of people behind a theory of voting as an act of wielding and shifting power. This is especially true for Black and Brown organizers who have come to see mass voter engagement and activation as a critical intervention in combatting the injustices plaguing so many of our communities. This movement aims not merely to survive, but to thrive; not to reform, but to transform.
Predictably, it took less than 24 hours after election results were announced for this movement to be cast aside.
The aspersions, thus far, are bipartisan. The “socialist” label cost Democrats in swing districts. Republicans may keep the Senate because so many voters were disturbed by images of the rioters and looters in the streets. If Joe Biden wants to get anything done in Washington, he will need to distance himself from radicals like The Squad.
Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who was narrowly re-elected in a suburban Virginia district, made national headlines when she proclaimed, “The number one concern in things that people brought to me in my [district] that I barely re-won, was defunding the police. . . If we don’t mean we should defund the police, we shouldn’t say that.”
I, for one, mean it. More importantly, so do many millions of other people, led by those same forward-thinking Black and Brown organizers who just flexed so hard in this historic election. In fact, according to two separate national polls conducted this past summer, proposals to defund the police receive plurality or majority support among young people (under 30), Black people, people who identify as “liberal,” and people who identify as Democrats. The establishment talking heads should ask themselves whether these sound like groups that will be easily marginalized.
What some of us realize, and others never tire of discounting, is that the demand for political transformation is a well-earned product of deeply unjust conditions—conditions that did not begin on January 20, 2017, and will not end on January 20, 2021. We see these conditions every day in St. Louis: thousands of our friends, families, and neighbors living in substandard housing or on the streets; racial segregation and wealth concentration; hundreds of millions of dollars spent year after year to police, prosecute, and incarcerate largely Black residents from communities marked by crushing poverty.
This is the status quo that gets preserved while so many politicos and commentators boast about how “reasonable” and “pragmatic” they are. This is the status quo that we must overcome.
This past Saturday, within minutes of the announcement of the presidential election results, I was among friends at a community farewell for the Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, outgoing president and CEO of the Deaconess Foundation and incoming president and CEO of the national Children’s Defense Fund. The cheerful mood of the gathering matched the unseasonable warmth and sunshine that graced the occasion. It all seemed quite fitting: that this man who embodies so much goodness—who has spent years advocating for the futures of the children of our region, this giant of a teacher, leader, guide, and mentor—would have a send-off on such a perfect day.
Starsky (as I know him) had one parting message before the festivities concluded. He told those in attendance that now is not the time for retreat. He reminded the crowd that, for the first time in American history, the majority of children born today are children of color—and that far too many of those are born into poverty—he made clear the moral imperative for Deaconess to continue to stand firm as an uncompromising advocate on behalf of those children. He expressed confidence that the team he was leaving behind would continue to provide a loud, fearless, and at times contrarian voice, and would not tolerate moderation in confronting injustice.
Pointing to his beloved colleagues and gesturing to the many friends and partners assembled around him, he issued a clear warning to guardians of the status quo: “This team ain’t gonna have it. This community ain’t gonna have it.”
How right he is.
Blake Strode is executive director of ArchCity Defenders.