The place will we go from right here? That’s a query I’ve been asking quite a bit these days as, from making an attempt to redefine what it means to be an American to pushing their plan to reduce healthcare for our veterans, the priorities of President-Elect Donald Trump and the MAGA GOP have come into sharp reduction. From the appears of it, they don’t need to roll again costs on the grocery retailer. They need to roll again progress, particularly progress that impacts us. So, for us, 2025 is about retaining hope and progress alive whereas we struggle towards their agenda venture 2025
In fact, whereas some could also be stunned by this blatant about face from marketing campaign rhetoric, we’re not. There’s a motive 78 % of Black males and 92 % of Black ladies voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. We knew the reality from the start. We knew the implications of Trump the sequel…and there’s no training within the second kick of the mule.
So, let’s be sincere. It’s unhealthy of us, particularly in the event you’re Black. Can Black of us count on to be focused with elevated oppression, suppression, incarceration and injustice over the following 4 years? Sure. Will the MAGA assist of white supremacists just like the Proud Boys translate to an extra rise in home terrorism and racial violence? Sure. Is it going to be a struggle each step of the way in which for Black of us even to be thought-about actual Individuals within the MAGA administration? In fact it’s…and that hardly scratches the floor.
However you realize what they’re not relying on? Us. You see, Black of us don’t scare simple as a result of we’ve seen it earlier than and if we are able to survive 400 years of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK and worse, then we are able to survive 4 extra of Donald Trump and after this administration is lengthy resigned to the dustbin of historical past, we’ll nonetheless be right here.
We’re descendents of women and men who refused to die, a individuals of unflinching resilience and boundless power and whereas we might have misplaced an election, we didn’t lose our objective.
So the place will we go from right here? Ahead.
Look, I don’t imply to fake that there isn’t actual trigger for frustration, anger and alarm. You don’t have to inform me about institutional racism and generational poverty. I grew up in rural Swansea, SC. I’m the grandson of sharecroppers. You assume I don’t know? I don’t really feel your ache; I’ve seen it in actual life and, in some methods, have lived experiences with it.
You don’t have to inform me in regards to the disappointment and anger you are feeling proper now. I really feel it too. It’s like Dr. King stated talking on the Nationwide Convention for New Politics in Chicago in 1967, “We had been the hardcore activists who had been keen to consider that Southerners could possibly be reconstructed within the constitutional picture. We had been the dreamers of a dream that darkish yesterdays of man’s inhumanity to man would quickly be remodeled into vivid tomorrows of justice. Now it’s exhausting to flee the disillusionment and betrayal. Our hopes have been blasted and our desires have been shattered.”
However that wasn’t all he stated that day as a result of, within the darkness he challenged us to struggle even more durable for the sunshine. He challenged us to rededicate ourselves to ethical justice and sensible motion. He challenged us to decide on group over chaos saying “Cowardice asks the questions, is it protected; expediency asks the query, is it politic; self-importance asks the query, is it common, however aware asks the query, is it proper. And on some positions, it’s mandatory for the ethical particular person to take a stand that’s neither protected, nor politic nor common; however he should do it as a result of it’s proper.”
It’s as much as us. Perhaps it’s insulting and it’s definitely unfair. In spite of everything, we didn’t trigger this disaster so why is it our job to remedy it? I perceive that frustration. I perceive that anger. However whereas that chaos might really feel cathartic, it doesn’t get us the place we have to go. We’d like group as a result of our voice is loudest when it’s united.
Roughly 12 % of the parents in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Congressional district are Black. However that’s nonetheless greater than 92,000 Individuals. What do you assume would occur if all of them spoke collectively?
Greater than a 3rd of the households in Speaker Mike Johnson’s district are black. What if all of them confirmed up on the Capitol calling on him to cease blocking the Freedom to Vote Act and let voting rights come to the Home flooring for, satirically, a vote.
There are practically 170,000 Black and latino Individuals in Matt Gaetz 1st Congressional District in Florida. That’s about 40,000 greater than the margin of his final election. Doesn’t that appear like energy to you? It’s like that in even essentially the most segregated communities in America. We’re instructed we don’t matter. We’re instructed we don’t depend. However after we come collectively, after we select group over chaos, our power can do something.
So right here will we go from right here? We go ahead. It gained’t be simple. However nothing value doing ever is.
We go ahead as a result of that’s what we do, from the freedmen who escaped the chains of slavery to the highschool scholar filling out a university utility. We go ahead as a result of our mother and father and grandparents and all those that got here earlier than refused to surrender irrespective of how unhealthy it bought. So neither will we.
Positive, we’ll need to work longer and struggle more durable however that may simply make the victory that a lot sweeter.
We transfer ahead as a result of, on the finish of the day, it’s the one manner left.
Antjuan Seawright (@antjuansea) is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Technique LLC, a CBS Information political contributor, and a senior visiting fellow at Third Method.