Day Two
A Decade of Movement
Still in Saint Louis— and battling a sinus infection so that is fun. Today’s writing is brought to you by Kleenex and Nasal Spray. Congrats.
Today Facing Race started with a bang. Or to be more accurate, a banger. On what was sure to be a heavy day, we began the conference with more art and performances— and the one that stole the show, the banger, is below:
Turn that up! And if you can’t make out the words the refrain was “What will become of poor me.”
Post Election Movement Building
A big part of this whole conference on facing race is the looming weight of the election—the one where white supremacy won out— and today was to be about strategies to foster resilience AND to promote safety in these unsafe times.
It was great to listen to some civil rights attorneys and organizers talk about ways to try to move forward. A big piece to take away is that now is a time for nuance and severe introspection. Democracies don’t die in a vacuum.
But some of the notable parts of discussion-
Race was the motivating factor for plenty of people and issues in the electorate BUT we should drop the lunacy in the concept we sometimes are tricked to believe that it is not also intertwined with class.
Racism persists because for those in power it benefits the status quo and many…okay most politicians use racist rhetoric as a form of solidarity.
WHATTT—yes you heard that right, think about the Orange messaging. Who did it galvanize? Yeah it galvanized non-Black groups against Black people soooooo Solidarity!
Speaking of Black people— we showed up and showed out this election but other people let us down.
Power is diffused. Yes there were some large losses at the top levels, but when you look at the election as a whole there were plenty of victories in down ballot races and ballot measures across the country. The president, even if the next one likes to think so, is not a king and we did have some victories that will be of help and we can build on.
Speaking of power, 90 million people didn’t vote. Engage them, galvanize them, game over.
There was also a discussion of the survivorship fallacy that comes from elections and I have seen a lot of it on the news. People who win, or when people win, there is a celebratory lookback of actions taken in the campaign. On the flipside, and this is pretty prevalent right now, there are tviews that everything was bad and wrong and everything was a misstep. Sound familiar?
What does this mean tho?
The conversation shifted to talk about the implications of what just happened and how we respond in the next few years. There is NO magic bullet but one thing we need to agree on is that we can’t let THEM dictate what happens. The strategy of authoritarians is to flood the news with crap and keep the people responding and fighting fires while they do whatever they want.
We saw this movie before, the sequel will suck.
We also need to work on writing our own story and speaking to each other and building out what we wish to see in the world. Coming together to fight FOR something instead of against something is key.
A big point that was made and I want to reiterate here is right now there is a huge break in trust within the progressive thinking electorate.
Many people agree with each other on the problem. We agree with our ‘leaders’ on the problem, but we don’t believe the people who are running are the ones who are going to actually do something for us about it. The trust has been lost and needs to be regained.
Something that really resonated and I had this thought but didn’t know how to put it into words, shoutout to Maurice from the Working Families Party for the language, but the loss of Vice President Harris was further proof in the fallacy of the savior for our democracy and values. We have to be the ones to rescue ourselves and that will take strategy and organizing. And most of all we need real solidarity, not the cute shirts and bracelets or pink hats…like actual solidarity like that kind white women pretended to have on zooms across America.
We didn’t forget…
One big thing that came up at the end and in subsequent sessions was this—
We cannot preemptively comply. We don’t concede to what they want.
We are not Joe and Mika.
Racial Equity/Justice in Spite of Legal Challenges
I am a nerd and especially a legal nerd so the long session I did in the afternoon was around fighting for racial justice in spite of the legal challenges we already see and the ones we know will come.
Again, no magic answer here but we did point out that they leaked the playbook…actually secretly ran on the playbook, Project 2025 and that has enabled some people to think through how to best play defense.
We know civil rights laws will be used against us and the attacks on civil service have already begun. We have to prepare for a world where the Department of Justice is going to be weaponized to prosecute perceived political enemies. They are not subtle.
And a big challenge we have to navigate is the stunning fact that Black and brown communities are about to be stocked with law enforcement— law enforcement that will be doing whatever they want. And the scary part is the recognition that technically 2/3 of the US population lives within an hour of the so called ‘border’ that is getting ramped up ‘enforcement’
NYC, Chicago, New Orleans, Houston, Los Angeles… yeah no Black or brown people in any of those cities.
But what came up again was the ask to not just lay down and comply. We have methods. A big shoutout to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for creating a program for orgs not quite sure how to navigate and having questions about their status in this confusing world coming up. There will be a lot of legal ambiguities and they have an address orgs can reach out to and seek clarity.
protectingdei@lawyerscommittee.org— That is major. There are people out here really getting us ready for rht fight to come.
10 Years Since Ferguson
The day ended with recognition that we are 10 years removed from the murder of Michael Brown Jr.
The session began with a phone call from Billie Allen, a Black man wrongfully convicted and on death row. (his art is also on display outside of the main conference hall..he’s very good) his sister took a call from him at the podium and broadcast the call for the 4000 attendees to hear. Pretty touching moment.
That was followed by some joy. A couple songs performed by the Saint Louis Story Stitchers, an artist collective here in the Lou.
Pick the City Up is the song.
I took a lot of notes about this session and discussion but at the end of the day decided it was best to let it stay there. Not out of secrecy but of deference to the moment, and some wise words from people on stage about the voyeuristic nature some people took with the pain this city faced. Ferguson/Lou is not a stop to make on your bingo tour of oppression. Do work.
I will say the things discussed were inspiring, a lot has happened in Saint Louis in those ten years and also moving. Two of the panelists were the parents of Michael Brown.
One tidbit that was new to me and especially haunting was Michael Brown Jr. had been very invested in the case and injustice in the murder of Trayvon Martin and talked about it with his parents not long before his own murder. America, we suck.
The end was a discussion about how we have a long way to go and we need to work on sustaining movements. We have a lot of work left to do.
Now I need to take meds and head to bed. JOY REID is here in the morning!!!
PS— Day 2 and still no Nelly.