I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: senator kamala harris

  • Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020)

    Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020)


    Congressman John Lewis, civil rights activist and politician, passed away on July 17, 2020, after a brief battle with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. He was eighty years old. The next day then United States Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) issued the following statement:

    Congressman John Lewis was an American hero—a giant, whose shoulders upon many of us stand. Throughout his life, he showed unending courage, generosity, and love for our country.

    As the son of sharecroppers in Alabama, John Lewis’ courage and vision placed him at the forefront of the civil rights movement. As the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, John Lewis knew the importance of bringing people together for an America that lives up to its ideals of liberty and equality for all.

    It was an honor to once again join Congressman Lewis this year in Selma, Alabama in March for what would be his final walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where just 55 years ago, Lewis was among those beaten by state troopers as they bravely marched from Selma to Montgomery for the right to vote. I was moved by his words: ‘On this bridge, some of us gave a little blood to help redeem the soul of America. Our country is a better country. We are a better people, but we have still a distance to travel to go before we get there.’

    We are grateful that John Lewis never lost sight of how great our country can be. He carried the baton of progress and justice to the very end. It now falls on us to pick it up and march on. We must never give up, never give in, and keep the faith.

    I will always cherish the quiet conversations we shared together when he inspired me to fight for the ideals of our beloved country. My prayers are with John Lewis’ family, loved ones, and the nation as we grieve this tremendous loss.

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    For me, Black History Month would be incomplete without remembering the courage of John Lewis in the Civil Rights Movement on Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. I have stood on that bridge, heard the voices of the oppressors and the oppressed as they sang from the pages of a distorted hymnal written in blood through the centuries.

    I still miss him. I miss her, too.

    ********************

    Never give up, never give in, and keep the faith.

  • this country doesn’t love us back


    “There are other cases… of officers who seem to be ‘trigger happy.’ In a number of instances, Negroes have been shot, supposedly in self-defense, under circumstances indicating, at best, unsatisfactory police work…and at worst, a callous willingness to kill.”

    (Excerpt from 1947 report “To Secure These Rights” produced by Harry Truman Committee on Civil Rights as quoted in opinion by Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King on June 19th, 2020)

    We know about the callous willingness to kill from the names of just a few of the many African Americans who speak from their graves, American lives lost at the hands of police brutality in cities across the country. Samuel DuBose – Cincinnati, 2015. Terrence Sterling –  Washington, D.C., 2016. Freddie Gray – Baltimore, 2015. Michael Brown – Ferguson, Missouri, 2014. Walter Scott – Charleston, South Carolina, 2015. Rayshard Brooks – Atlanta, 2020. Tamir Rice – Cleveland, Ohio, 2014.  Trayvon Martin – Sanford, Florida, 2012. Breonna Taylor – Louisville, Kentucky, 2020. Eric Garner – New York City, 2014. George Floyd – Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2020.

    This week Jacob Blake’s name was added to the 2020 infamous roll call of victims of “unsatisfactory police work” – this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin. As destructive wild fires raged in California claiming the life of a helicopter pilot attempting to douse the inferno, as a Category 4 Hurricane called Laura gathered the power to strike along the Gulf Coast shores in Louisiana bringing life threatening winds and water reminiscent of Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, as the number of American lives lost in the worst pandemic of our history reached the dubious milestone of 180,000 +,  a police officer shot an unarmed African American man seven times in the back when he attempted to get in the car where his three young sons waited and watched. Jacob Blake will likely be paralyzed if he survives the bullet wounds.

    Doc Rivers, head coach of the NBA franchise Los Angeles Clippers, had an emotional reaction to the police shooting in an interview on August 25th. “…we’ve been hung, we’ve been shot…it’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country doesn’t love us back…the training (for police) has to change. My dad was a cop, I believe in good cops. We’re trying to get them to protect us like they protect everyone else…as an American you need to be outraged at that video. All we ask is that you live up to the Constitution.”

    Yesterday the wide world of sports came to a grinding halt as athletes from both the NBA and WNBA, major league baseball and soccer teams all joined together to promote social justice through police reforms long overdue in our nation by boycotting their respective games. Players across the board said this killing of black people through police brutality must stop. Our lives do matter, they agreed, and we want to see genuine criminal justice changes that guarantee our families equal safety and protection under the law. Tennis players rallied around the protest of Naomi Osaka by postponing the semi-finals at the Western and Southern Open scheduled for play today. No justice, no peace, no sports.

    Senator Kamala Harris reminded us in a statement this afternoon that our pledge of allegiance calls for “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” We know, and we have always known that promise is unfulfilled for people of color, but now cell phones record that broken promise every time a video of these egregious acts goes viral on social media to be seen by anyone and everyone. Pretending, denying, disavowing, obfuscating no longer are viable options for people of good will who embrace the truth.

    Wake up, America, it’s time to love them back. We can, and we must, do better.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned. By all means, VOTE in November.

     

     

  • you are out of your lane


    “There will be a resistance to your ambition. There will be people who say to you, ‘You are out of your lane,’ because they are burdened by only having the capacity to see what has always been instead of what can be. But don’t let that burden you.” – Senator Kamala Harris on a live stream conversation for 2020 Black Girls Lead conference

    When Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate in 1984, I was joyful that the defeat of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the women’s movement of the 1970s hadn’t translated to a total wipe-out of our opportunities for political office at the highest level in America. I was optimistic. Incumbents Reagan and Bush (GHW) won 49 of the 50 states.

    When Hillary Clinton was nominated 32 years later in 2016 by the Democratic party to be the president of the United States, I was ecstatic at the prospect of finally having a woman as commander-in-chief. I was optimistic for the defeat of Republican nominee Trump particularly after his misogynistic remarks during the “nasty” campaign. The election results showing Clinton’s win of the popular votes but the electoral college majority supporting Trump made for dismay, tears, depression, you name it that night in our home as well as the next 4 years of enduring a president who delivered on his campaign agenda of serving the wealthy at the expense of the poor, dividing the country through white nationalists at the expense of people of color, punishing refugees seeking asylum by separating parents from children and detaining them at our borders in inhumane conditions.

    This past week I was giddy when I watched Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden select Senator Kamala Harris to be his vice presidential running mate in the 2020 election scheduled for November 3rd. I celebrated her choice not only because she is a woman but also because she is a woman of color  born in California to a mother who immigrated from India and a father who immigrated from Jamaica. Her parents met at Berkeley through their activism in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. A first for Black women and a validation of their support of Biden that pushed him over the finish line here in South Carolina at a time when his candidacy was in jeopardy – and not just for their support of Biden. Black women are the most reliable voting constituency for the Democratic party in many local, state and federal elections. As Harris herself says on the campaign trail, ” I hear you. I see you.” I am once again optimistic for the election of a woman whose very presence on the ticket  reflects more nearly the diversity of our country.

    Many call the 2020 election an inflection point for America. In the midst of a world wide Covid pandemic that has been routinely dismissed by the administration in the West Wing, a tremendous social upheaval against systemic racism by Black Lives Matter that intensified with the murder of George Floyd, the grief over the loss of Congressman John Lewis – we have an opportunity to correct the go it alone policies of isolation that foster fear for our allies and hope for our enemies. The times they are a-changing for sure.

    “There will be a resistance to your ambition. There will be people who say to you, ‘You are out of your lane,’ because they are burdened by only having the capacity to see what has always been instead of what can be. But don’t let that burden you.”

    It’s time to shake off the burdens of intolerance, hunger, inequalities in education, health care and housing, police brutality against minorities – the politics of divisiveness that have blinded us for centuries. Senator Harris is not out of her lane. We shouldn’t be either. Be woke, America. Vote.

    Stay safe, stay sane and stay tuned.