Truth To Power
January 13, 2021
Dear Leading Ladies,
As Congress pursues impeaching the current president of the United States for the second time, and we look forward to the inauguration of a new administration that promises to operate with integrity and decency, we might feel encouraged and even optimistic. And, yet….and, yet, though President-elect Biden tries to assuage our fears by telling us that this isn’t us, this isn’t America - “this” being the insurrection incited by Trump, “this” being the racism that resulted in the killing of George Floyd and so many other people of color by police last year, “this” being children wrested from their parents at our southern border - “this,” in fact, is a significant part of the United States today.
Image by: Erin Schaff, New York Times
“National security experts have been warning for years about the growing threat and influence of white supremacits, far-right groups,” Deirdre Fernandes and Dasia Moore wrote in Sunday’s Boston Globe (“Years in the making, extremist cause won’t end with Trump out”). The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan policy think tank, reports that in the first half of 2020, nearly 90 percent of terrorist plots and attacks in the United States were tied to right-wing extremism,” Fernandes and Moore report. They go on to reference Paul Watanabe, political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, who points to the frightening reality that extremism has infiltrated the Republican Party and “occupied the hearts and minds of politicians of the United States.”
Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said last week that we need to tell people the truth. He was speaking about the election results and the importance of telling the electorate that Biden and Harris won fair and square, rather than encouraging conspiracy theories and misinformation about a supposed Trump stolen win. But telling the truth about the reality of the number of conspiracists, racists, and White supremacists, is equally or more important. These groups are growing and are not about to go away. And they pose a real and constant threat to our democracy and the necessary work to make our democracy work for everyone, not just for white people of privilege and means.
Don’t get us wrong. We are optimistic about the new administration. But we are also realistic about the work that needs to be done and the challenges to that work’s success. The United States can only become a real democracy if we face our failings and admit that there are enemies to the ideals of our Constitution who are working as hard as we are but with very different goals. As Miguel La Serna, professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is quoted in the Globe article, “Claiming that this isn’t us is not really helpful. This is us, and the question is how do we deal with it.”
What Rev. Raphael Warnock, newly elected senator from Georgia, said from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church on Sunday expressed both hope and concern for what lies ahead. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. So there is victory in the moment, there is violence in this moment, there is fantastic opportunity and fierce opposition, and it reminds us that there is still a whole lot of work to do.”
So, it’s time to take off the blinders and recognize the strength of the opposition to creating a truly fair society on our shores. While accepting this reality can be depressing and overwhelming, it also arms us for what our incoming president calls “the fight for the soul of the nation.” Wisdom truly is power.
Please don’t forget to watch Pipeline on BroadwayHD and then register to join our conversation about this moving play about a family’s attempts to navigate an educational system not built to encourage their child of color. Our Zoom conversation will be on Monday, January 25 from 7-8:30 p.m. Register here and we will send you a Zoom link the morning of the discussion group. Learn more about our new discussion group, kNOw MORE.
Be well, stay safe, there is hope.
Therese
Judy
Mary
Kim
Leading Ladies Executive Team
LeadingLadiesVote.org