Tales of Freedom: Voting Is Not Enough? (Part 2)
By Quardricos Driskell
The Democratic and Republican National Conventions have concluded. The theme of the Democratic Convention was that Donald Trump has failed as a leader and does not deserve a second term. The Democrats focused heavily on introducing Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris to America, promoting him as a person of enormous faith having better leadership qualities than Trump. The Democrats’ overall message was that his empathy is a sign of strength and will lead to better governance.
The Republicans lied through their teeth; yet, seem to project strength through their tough stance on “law and order.” Trump’s attempt to shape the violent unrest in the wake of Jacob Blake’s shooting as a fallout from inept leadership and the inability of Democrats to take control of their cities might be gaining steam. Meanwhile, I am afraid Black America is caught in the political games with our lives at stake as the cheapest and most galvanizing pawn for both parties.
Parenthetically, a white police officer shoots a Black man as he’s leaning into a car with his three sons inside. He shoots him point-blank in the back seven times as if he didn’t matter. If George Floyd was murdered on camera, Blake is the object of an attempted execution. The country, including cities such as Kenosha, Washington DC, Minneapolis, and Portland, explodes in rage. It is the same rage that’s been igniting around the country all summer long. If all of this wasn’t enough, a young, white, armed vigilante from another state take matters into their own hands and kills two local men with an AR-15-style rifle.
Be clear: this is nothing new. Republicans are betting that Trump’s “law and order” playbook, which echoes 1960s-era GOP strategies on racial divisions, will benefit him electorally, energizing his predominately-white base and appeal to the white women Republicans lost in 2018. Their ideology, political history, and everyday practical lived experience teach us that their strategy has worked. From Falwell’s Moral Majority to the Tea Party to now, Trump is America.
The season of reckoning is both inevitable and necessary. As painful and shameful as it is to admit, it takes dramatic demonstrations in American cities to get the attention of white America.
Protest is needed but it is not enough. Some of the most impactful work often takes place inside the power systems that we are opposing. Protests get the attention of the powerful forces in society but inside work—work that shows them the wisdom of change—is often the source of real progress. These protests aren’t just reactions to the latest example of police brutality against unarmed Black women and men. It’s about 401 years of oppression on these shores and the centuries of murder, rape, enslavement, dehumanization, redlining, educational inequalities, and unjust distribution of resources that continue to this day.
Imagine if the same level of mass protest we have seen in recent months was the same or double the push for a mass protest in the form of writing members of Congress and state legislatures throughout the year. Additionally, such focus during elections is usually on presidential elections. However, local district attorneys, judges, and state races also need our attention.
Furthermore, America is controlled by capitalism. Consequently, picture engaging with the same businesses, CEOs, and billionaires that made substantial donations to several social justice and racial equity institutions about putting pressure on the legislative bodies both nationally and locally to advance the causes of justice in technology, health equity, and criminal justice reform. It is time to move past symbolic gestures of representation without substantial policy or wealth accumulation action and pressure on lawmakers to accompany it.
Our earthly salvation is in our hands and cannot be determined based on who wins a presidential election every four years nor can our only solutions be to simply encourage people to vote. Both political and economic freedom are needed and require pressure from us.
Black billionaires make significant donations to historically black institutions. Yet, emphasis is also needed to build upon existing wealth and moderate means to invest long-term in these institutions and not simply offer episodic one-off programs.
In 1906, John Hope, the first Black president of Morehouse College, delivered his rebuttal in a speech before a black debating society in Nashville on George Washington’s birthday, and said, “God forbid that we should get the implements with which to fashion our freedom, and then be too lazy or pusillanimous to fashion it.” Protest, voting, public policy, and building wealth are tools to ensure our freedom and they all must work in tandem.
Quardricos Bernard Driskell is a federal lobbyist and an adjunct professor of legislative politics at The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.
