Time to Get True Democracy for All Back on Track
How far have we come in 200 years? Consider:
We began Black History Month with an unprecedented number of bomb threats against Historically Black Colleges. The Federal Court system is processing white supremacist cases in numbers unimaginable eight years ago. Hate crimes reported by the FBI have increased by 25 percent since President Trump’s inauguration, and the vast majority of these are against persons of African descent.
Racist and hate rallies here in our own state and county have and are occurring, falsely claiming to be defending a dystopian version of freedom where whites are free to do as they please and people of color are not.
A school superintendent of a school district in a neighboring county has been discharged for failing to enact racist policies designed to intentionally whitewash the history taught to our children.
School Board members in school districts in our own county face vitriolic assaults from racists who think acknowledging Oregon’s own racist history is as fake as life-saving vaccines.
The unfortunate public record of many police officers in Clackamas County demonstrates that racial profiling is alive and well.
Mark Shull, one of our County Commissioners, continues to support and engage in hate speech using his office as fertile ground for racism and hate.
When Dr. King said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, I cannot believe he would imagine in 2020 that African Americans could be murdered by private citizens for jogging in white neighborhoods, or that public school teachers would be disciplined and discharged for teaching the truth about slavery, the civil rights movement, Jim Crow, redlining and the U.S. Civil War.
The whitelash (because language matters) to our first African American President shocked many in the white community.
The whitelash to our first female African American Vice President is visible every day.
The whitelash to the nomination and appointment of our first female African American Supreme Court Justice is forming now.
This is all in the context of the Supreme Court dismantling the Voting Rights Act of the Johnson Administration. That point in time was when racists left the Democratic Party in droves and migrated to ideological settlement camps established by Ronald Reagan after his speech for President was delivered in Mississippi in 1980.
Electing people of color and promoting diversity are important symbolic steps to bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice. We all benefit by having diversity of opinion and life experiences in our public decision-making bodies. But it is not enough.
We cannot sit by idly while County Commissioners engage in racist behavior. We must rush to the defense of school board members and teachers who are attacked by racist hate speech.
Each of us must look into the mirror of our thoughts and actions.
We must come to an understanding of our white privilege. For each of us this is a different process. But for all of us it includes the recognition that being born white in this country gave us opportunities, even the poorest of us, not readily available to our neighbors of color.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all are being challenged, and it is time to stop it. In our democracy, that starts with voting and demands that all of us become engaged in protecting those freedoms we have and those still sought by others.
Whereas Lincoln’s Republican Party was once the anti-slavery stalwart, the party of justice and equality, Mr. Trump closed the final door on that party, a deplorable move that GOP lawmakers endorse and repeat without shame.
It is time to restore the rights and dignity of everyone. That’s why we’re voting Democratic again. Join us. There’s too much at stake to walk away.