Stay woke in 2020
30th December 2019 · 0 Comments
After the merriment, the drinks, the food, the fireworks subside, African-American communities will go back to business as usual: Our jobs, our families, our existence….the struggle.
Every New Year ushers in the time-honored tradition of making resolutions to become our better selves, whether it’s committing to losing weight, going back to school, finishing school, starting new hobbies, making more money, buying that house or new car, or just trying to elevate our lifestyles.
In 2020, as we make personal New Year’s resolutions and the plans to sustain them, let us commit to sticking with the resolutions we make, beyond the customary two weeks. Let us also make a commitment to better our communities by protecting our constitutional rights.
Shedding pounds and getting new things, notwithstanding, in 2020, we need to make a commitment to stay woke about the reality of what’s going on in our neighborhoods and, where we see a need, do something about it. For example, we need to hold our elected officials accountable in a political climate set by Donald Trump that politicians can do anything they want, without repercussions.
Uh, no. This New Year, we need to join progressive thinkers and doers and make our voices heard, as difficult as that might be. After all, daily survival is a major challenge and chore for African-American people, in and of itself.
But we are facing a political regime that is literally turning the clock back on the gains we have made in voting rights, civil rights, and constitutional rights. The challenges we are facing include attempts to disenfranchise us at the ballot box, in our state legislature, in the U.S. Congress and at the local level.
If we stay asleep and not rise to the occasion, we can kiss due process, voting rights, economic opportunities, and a level playing field goodbye.
We can’t let the politicians, whom we elect, strip us of our basic constitutional rights and relegate us back to second-class citizenship. We’ve been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt.
No. We must become proactive. We can’t afford the luxury of saying what the pols do won’t affect me.
We must fight for fair wages, affordable healthcare, affordable housing, fair utility rates, better schools, and a fair share of the tax dollars that we invest in the system.
To be fair, no one wants the burden of lobbying for our civil and human rights. Who really has time for that? Working two or three jobs, pinching pennies, ensuring that our children are safe, and putting food on the table is enough of a struggle for anyone.
But to do nothing is to court disaster. To do nothing is to wake up one morning without health benefits, with soaring rents and utilities, without proper social security benefits or the SNAP benefits many of us need, without the training and education needed to achieve the American dream, without access to the ballot box…without the opportunity to live the American Dream.
Do we understand that there are forces at work within and without our community, primarily conservative Democrats and Republicans, who are on a hyped-up mission to marginalize us in the face of the browning of America? Do we understand that they have been waging an Uncivil War against us since we’ve got here but that they have ratcheted up their efforts?
In Wisconsin, for example, which just elected a democratic governor, the Secretary of State recently announced plans to purge 200,000 from the voting roles and in Georgia, a federal judge has given the green light to remove 313,000 from the voting rolls, people who haven’t voted in three elections; the majority of whom are African-Americans. The results will be the same as what occurred when Stacey Abrams lost her gubernatorial bid. From 2012 to 2018, Abrams opponent, then-Secretary of State and now Governor Brian Kemp purged 1.4 million people from the voting rolls.
Here is Louisiana, our newly re-elected Governor John Bel Edwards signed the “heartbeat” bill into law, putting the state at the top of the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade. Edwards is also opposing citizens in Terrebonne Parish, who have filed suit against the state, to eliminate at-large races for judges. The at-large election trick (a gerrymandering tactic) dilutes the African-American vote and makes it difficult for African-Americans to elect judges of their choice. Edwards and the state’s racist Attorney General Jeff Landry are appealing a court decision to allow for single-member districts in that parish.
Their actions threatened to take down the Chisom Consent Decree, which paved the way in New Orleans for the first African-American, the late Justice Revius O. Ortique, Jr., to sit on the Louisiana State Supreme Court (LASC) and LASC Chief Justice Bernette J. Johnson to be the first African-American and African-American woman to hold the highest position on the state’s highest court. Justice Johnson is retiring at the end of 2020. We must work together to find her replacement. We can’t be divided when selecting a candidate, because we’ve seen what happens when we split the African-American vote. When the field is too crowded with too many of us, we pave the way for a non-Black to win.
When we consider the out-of-control Entergy and Sewerage & Water Board charges, high property taxes, escalating rents, high sales taxes, and low wages, even for professionals in the city, African-Americans in New Orleans must wake up, stay woke, and get involved in the fight for justice and equality.
We have choices. As individuals, we can call our representatives, write letters, show up, show out and speak up at political hearings and meetings. Or we can join with others in a variety of organizations who are working for justice, including A Community Voice, Justice & Beyond, New Orleans People’s Assembly, VOTE (Voice of the Experienced), Lower Ninth Ward Voters Coalition, HousingNOLA, Urban League of Greater New Orleans, NAACP, People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond and several churches that are working for civil, equal, human rights, and affordable housing.
Our younger generations, many of whom have no clue as to the struggles of the past, can ill afford to sit back and think, ‘I got mine and that’s all I care about.’ Because once struggle-conscious elders leave this world, they may find themselves not knowing what to do nor how they arrived at where they are…disillusioned and disenfranchises.
Whatever we decided to do in New Orleans, one thing is clear, we must find common ground, unify and work together across generations, to preserve the hard-won gains by people, on whose shoulder we stand.
So, eat, drink and be merry in this New Year but, above all, let’s us resolve to STAY WOKE & GET INVOLVED!
This article originally published in the December 30, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
