Atima Omara writes that the Democratic Party shouldn’t sacrifice the growing base of voters of color to win election.
Last week black women activists and leaders met with DNC Chair Tom Perez, and it was easy to think of them like the heroine in horror or sc-fi movie who find solutions to the threat of the day as bystanders wring their hands and wail. These women cut through the Democratic soul-searching after a series of electoral losses with a clear-cut message, stated in an open-letter that secured the meeting: Include us, the party’s most loyal constituency and voting bloc. We know how to slay the demons.
I was part of a larger series of discussions and reflections post the 2016 presidential election, which for many Americans, the ones who gave Hillary Clinton a popular-vote win, was like a horror movie franchise — “Halloween” or this year’s “Alien: Covenant.” In this case, the demons are racism, sexism, and xenophobia. They reared their ugly heads like the awful, spindly creature that originally emerged from an unsuspecting human’s body in the original 1979 “Alien.” We set out to defeat them, except in 2016, the scary demons emerged from America’s history to win. They had never been truly vanquished.
Instead of learning how to fight smarter – like Sigourney Weaver eventually did in that classic — many in the progressive movement are looking to accommodate them in a bid to win elections. As we watch Trump continue to attack female journalists with gender-specific insults, roll back healthcare and criminal justice reform advances and destroy every small positive step toward and inclusive society, the concern of many, especially many black women and communities of color, is that once again, we’ll be the first and most quickly forgotten policy victims of the Trump administration. Haven’t accommodating Democrats learned anything? Don’t they realize that those who step over friends and allies in a bid to make nice with the demon still lose in the end?
Click here to read the rest of Omara Strategy Group’s President, Atima Omara op-ed for Alternet