Winter
Aftershocks and Trips to My Favorite Places, from Hy Thurman to Ancient
Testimony
My new year’s resolution was to stop paying
attention to Donald Trump.
It was
going well until Wednesday.
And
then things went off the rails.
We'd
spend the week trying to make sense of right wing, white supremacist
insurrectionists, many carrying confederate flags, marching into the capital,
aided and abated by the Capital Police, with the support of the president on
Wednesday.
One of
my old grad school professors Steve Burghardt posted:
"So many words have been written
about yesterday, I'll stick to data-driven facts: on June 1, 2020, at a
peaceful BLM protest in Washington, 289 people were arrested. Yesterday,
January 6, 2021, eight guns were confiscated, at least two explosive devices
were located, numerous Capital windows were smashed, furniture was broken,
Congressional members' offices were vandalized, and 50 police officers were
hurt. 69 people were arrested."
And
unlike when lefties come to defend the Affordable Care Act or protest judges or
to shout Black Lives Matter, who get arrested in seconds, the capital police
rolled out the red carpet for the president's insurgency.
Alex
Vitale noted:
"Threat
assessments are colored by police world views, which means that threats from
the left and racial minorities, are always exaggerated, and threats from the
right and white nationalist groups are always diminished..."
Cleve
Jones pointed out:
"FYI if you
post shit on your timeline or mine that attempts to equate what the Trump
fascists did this week with what BLM has done or what ACT-UP did or any other
form civil disobedience or resistance or even rebellion then I am done with
you. Seriously."
Seth
Tobocman put his finger on some of the sentiments a few of us were thinking:
"I'm sure a lot of
you feel as I do here. I can't help identifying with someone fighting police,
offending politicians and forcing their way into a government building. And I
love the costume with the horns. And I'm very disturbed that the cops killed
people...BUT...Fascism is a revolutionary movement from the right. They answer
real problems with mythical solutions. Their actual plans involve dictatorship
and genocide. The fact that these guys are protesters, are rebels, that they
fight cops and occupy buildings and wear interesting outfits, does not make
them "us". In fact, if they got their way, most of us would be made
into soap and lampshades."
Thursday,
we hit the streets:
"Rally at
Barclays Center at 6 PM...in Brooklyn demanding that President Trump and the
Republicans who supported yesterday’s mob violence be removed from office."
People from all
over town were there, trying to make sense of it all.
Enough is enough, everyone declared.
Hold them
accountable.
Stop the double
standard.
Take on white
supremacy,
Blue Lives Matter, the new Jim Crow. Enough.
They want a race
war, said Caroline.
But we don't.
And
gradually, we made our way through what would happen next.
Out to
Coney Island Brian took me, where we talked it through, trying to cope with the
cold, solitary winter.
The
rides were closed, restaurants shuttered.
A few
people plunged into the water.
Birds
danced overhead, not appearing to be too concerned with our troubles.
Saturday,
Mom and I imagined places to travel.
Sunday,
we ate pancakes and made our way to the Met to imagine.
We
travel through our minds, history, and decorative rooms looking at winter by
Jean Antoine Houdon, shivering, hiding from the elements.
The subway to and from was slower
than ever, all through the winter afternoon, limited service in the days of
COVID.
Can we live or even dream of another
reality, a multi-racial democracy?
Is there room for everyone, I thought,
looking at the homeless asking for cash.
Back home, I joined the Highlander
Research and Education Center, Books to the Barricades and the Center for
Political Education in celebrating the release of Hy Thurman's new book Revolutionary
Hillbilly.
White
supremacist mob violence is nothing new, noted Lynn Lewis, introducing the talk,
wondering about a new world, a world where all our voices find expression?
Can we
find room for the teenagers, the queers, the homeless, the poor, the people of
color Stacy Abrams is helping organize - everyone - turning red states blue.
Imagine
a world that doesn't exist, that hasn't existed, or what they meant to those
who saw them, said Lynn Lewis.
Hy Thurman told stories of the Young Patriots.
"Very
few of us young patriots that are alive today," said Hy, beginning the
talk.
“When
I came to Chicago, I was reading on a third-grade level.
I
wanted to write a book that would reach the common folk, a book of racial
solidarity.
Even with
what we saw last week, we have to try even more today.
It’s
up to us. We owe it to poor people, to write to, to speak to each other.
This
is the story of the Rainbow Coalition, I wanted to share, the poor person,
cross racial coalition that the FBI and Mayor Daley wanted to destroy, first by
killing Freddie Hampton, and Black Panthers.
Despite the obstacles, a poor
people's coalition formed.
'We
the poor of uptown, have heard you say we represent you.
but we
are still unrepresented,' we declared.
We
studied socialism, rejected capitalism, thinking everyone should be equal.
We
joined a movement, became revolutionaries, joined the Black Panthers,
started
food distribution, legal clinics, housing clinics, and then Freddie Hampton
was
murdered.
They
conspired to end the Rainbow Coalition, bridging poor whites and Black
activists, and locked up the records of our activities.
Everywhere
we went with our programs, the cops would come in.
We
would be beaten and jailed falsely.
They
did kill some of us.
They
went after the gangs.
Why
would you want to go into a coalition with us, I said to Freddie Hampton, given
the history.
He
said I can look past that cause I know that you are fighting for the
revolution.
After
he was killed, some of us had to leave.
But we
are back.
Training
organizers.
The
rainbow coalition lives on.
Some
day, some day, we can have that revolution."
The book is a case study in
intersectionality.
The
power of having a united front.
We
tapped into Highlander.
If
this was happening in uptown, it had to be happening in other communities too.
There
were many ways of doing it.
Anti
war protests.
We
worked with a number of different groups, Freddie Hampton and MLK, Civil Rights
and Young Lords.
We developed our program around the
Black Panther program, a ten-point platform.
Allyn Maxfield-Steele,
of the Highlander Folk Center, commented on the migrations, people moving to
and from the South, people finding new identities that he read about in the
book, from white trash to coalition partners. Are we going where people are
going? How are people fighting back?
"Southern
white people are hard to organize," Hy replied.
"It’s so
hard to get people to admit they are poor. The whole definition of poor
changed. Even today, the whole challenge is to get them to admit they are poor.
It’s hard. It’s important of meeting people where they are in terms of their
values. So many people believe they are
going to be there. You've gonna get there. We have to meet people where they
are with their values. We have an opportunity now to reach more people, once
they get over the stigma of being lied to. We have to meet people where they
are at. And then we get them something. We have to educate people to get em to
see that the system is not working for them."
Sarah Schulman
put it:
"You could
arrest all 74 million Trump supporters, close and open a hundred apps and fire
every person in government and it wouldn't solve the problem. A better strategy
would be for the new regime to do things that actually help people like:
excellent national healthcare with top-notch drug rehab, a huge infrastructure
re-build creating widespread high-skill job training that provides interesting
well-paid jobs, equal educational opportunities, and child care, and make
decisions humanely and fairly, and I think things would get better around
here."
"You
gotta do something every day," Hy concluded. Talk to a neighbor.
Bring someone food.
"Do what you can every
day."
Aftercall,
Simone de Beauvoir suggests:
Sunday
is usually my day to get to Judson to think about those illusions and collective
myths.
These
days service in online, with well wishes and reports of those in the hospital,
conversation dangling between ancient and modern testimonies, a place to try to
make sense of it all, between a city of God and a Brave and Starling Truth.
Ancient
Testimony Psalm 46:
“...There
is a river whose streams make glad the city of God…
God is in the midst of the city; it
shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
The
nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth
melts...”
We certainly are all in an uproar here
in the city, in the winter, still coping with social isolation, our city half
awake, dreaming of that dance in the woods, the invincible summer, where bands
play, we meet; we sweat in the mosh pit.
We know our neighbors, play music and connect again.
This
is what Maya was talking about in the Modern Testimony
“A Brave and Startling Truth” by Maya
Angelou (Excerpts)
“...We,
this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past
aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all
signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling
truth And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking… We, this people, on
this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon ...Out
of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor
divines… When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the
miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come
to it...”
Every
day we are coming to it.
As DH Lawrence saw it:
"Free, that was the great word. Out
in the open world, out in the forests in the morning, with lusty and
splendid-throated young fellows, free to do as they liked. It was the talk that
mattered supremely: the impassioned interchange of talk, love was only a minor
accompaniment..."
But we found each other and ourselves.
David
Solnit pointed toward a statement:
The Poor People’s
Campaign witnessed with heavy hearts the events of January 6th, when a mob
emboldened by hate, lies, and racism laid siege to the US Capitol and other
state capitols across the country in an attempt to subvert our democracy. This attack was carried
out at the behest of a narcissistic President and his enablers, who have
followed a divisive political strategy that is as old as the deconstructionists
of the 1870s and the Southern strategy of the 1960s. We know that the only
antidote to this poison in our body politic is a moral fusion coalition
committed to reconstructing democracy.
Our intersectional movement has been met with arrest while engaged in
non-violent protest — praying, singing and peacefully marching. The people who
stormed the Capitol on January 6th were not protesting but attempting to
overthrow democratic government by mob rule. The fact that these violent
rioters were able to break into the Capitol should alarm us all and cause us to
question the deference they were given by law enforcement and security forces.
This is eerily reminiscent of how law enforcement has often been used to
protect violent and racist actors defending the status quo while suppressing
non-violent social justice movements.
As a state-based national movement that has nonviolently protested at state
capitols and the US Capitol, calling out policy violence and pushing for a just
moral agenda for and with poor and low-income people, moral leaders, activists
and organizers across race, geography, issue area and other lines of division,
we must point out that:
1.
This
did not just happen. For years extremist politicians who call themselves
Republicans have sown the winds of division and lies; now the country is
reaping the whirlwind of chaos. We call on our lawmakers and justice system to
hold President Trump, senators, Congress persons, and all elected and appointed
officials who had a role in these heinous attacks accountable for their
actions, swiftly and to the full extent of the law.
2.
These
politicians found time and resources to plan, support, and continue an attack
on democracy (even after it turned deadly) but have not found time and
resources to expand health care, enact a just stimulus, raise wages, or protect
the people they are called to serve.
3.
They
push the people into a rage rooted in racism but have refused to push efforts
to address systemic racism.
4.
They
are responsible for the five deaths that occurred in the attack, but their
policy inaction is also in large part responsible for the inept response to
Covid that has caused nearly 400,000 deaths.
5.
They
have spent more time lying to the people than lifting the people, especially
the least of these of this nation.
Such violence always
erupts when there is the greatest possibility for change. Throughout history,
Native and Indigenous people have seen this kind of mob violence. Black people
have seen it. Women have seen it. Asians have seen it. Latino farm workers have
seen it. Workers standing for labor rights have seen it. What we saw this week
is not the dream of America, but it has too often been the practice of America.
This week’s violence is a reaction to record turnout of people of every race,
income, region, sexuality, creed and conviction who voted for candidates that
pledged to expand health care, raise wages, address systemic racism and
poverty, in the general election and the Georgia run-off. It took place as we
witnessed cracks in the Southern strategy, which has kept people divided by
race for decades. This was an assault rooted in a refusal to believe the
legitimacy of an election where people of color and poor and low wealth people
united to vote out an extremist President and Senate majority.
Lastly, we must not confuse a failed attempt to subvert democracy with popular
uprisings to reclaim government for the people. This riot exposes the MAGA
movement as a fake populism that serves elites. It is a mistake to scapegoat
poor people, especially poor white people for what happened on January 6. Press
reports of the rioters included business owners, executives, and
multi-millionaires.
At a time when something new is breaking through the hate, we cannot let this
stop the growth of a moral fusion movement. The Poor People’s Campaign: A
National Call for Moral Revival is committed to continuing to build a fusion
movement that brings the 140 million poor and low-income people of this country
together across race and other historic divisions. This is what will protect
our democracy and democratic institutions and build a stronger nation.
Forward together, not one step back!
Rev.
Dr. William J. Barber, II
President, Repairers of the Breach
Co-Chair, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
Rev.
Dr. Liz Theoharis
Director, Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice
Co-Chair, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
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