A More Perfect Union
Our Democracy
This administration’s policies represent a backlash against civil rights and all things exposing and addressing systemic racism These policies end up hurting everyone and place our democracy and security of this nation at risk. They always do. Unfair justice systems are not justice systems at all. Their intent is to create the perception of justice while benefiting the wealthy by providing them access to increased power.
Without true civil rights, there can be no true Democracy. Civil Rights are fundamental to the democratic integrity and societal well-being of this nation. Our national history of slavery and segregation have made civil rights necessary to deter discriminatory practices. Civil rights also ensure fair access to social and economic opportunities and open the political process to Black folks and other marginalized communities. Additional strategies have been necessary to address disparate adverse impacts caused by systemic racism.
This rollback of enforcement on civil rights in the United States takes us to a time of the fall of reconstruction (1890-1910) when lynchings, and convict leasing were the order of the day. The work of exposing and mitigating systemic racism – the legacy of slavery (disparate impact) is now federally banned and designated as illegal. These roll-backs on civil rights and attacks on actions addressing disparate impact are meticulously targeted at dismantling an infrastructure that was designed to finally move this nation towards the more perfect union and the justice of her promise. Instead, these rollbacks and attacks take us back to historical patterns of maintaining racial hierarchies.
True justice, stability, and safety for all Americans is only achievable through civil rights and acknowledging and addressing the impact that slavery and segregation has had and continues to have on our nation today – systemic racism. There is nothing more important in the fight for the soul of this nation than the fight for our civil rights – The fight for JUSTICE.
Federal withdrawal of civil rights protections and the attack on all efforts to address the disparate impacts of slavery’s legacy are not new. It was an assault on Democracy then and it is an assault on Democracy TODAY! The stories being told to justify these destructive efforts are lies and will not stand. We can’t be hoodwinked with the grievance narrative that all of our work to address civil rights and disparate outcomes are in some way discriminating against our white brothers and sisters.
We fight for civil rights because they are at the heart of the fight for the soul of this nation. We can not and will not allow the lives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, John Lewis Lewis and countless others who fought for these rights, to be in vain. We must finish the work that we started.