Black Faces in High Places won’t save us
We don’t just need Black leadership. We need pro-Black leadership. In this piece, our Rwebel in Chief will look at the disconnect between Black leadership and pro-Blackness.
She was the first Black, openly gay woman to be elected mayor, which people celebrated. Yet, this past summer, she also made history in another, more daunting way. During protests following the death of George Floyd, Lightfoot made a controversial move to raise the bridges in the downtown area.
This would be the first of several times she raised the bridges over the summer. Given Chicago’s status as one of the most segregated cities in the U.S., according to a 2019 analysis, the implications of her raising the bridges was that she wanted to protect one side of the city from the other.
From raising the bridges to refusing to decrease the police budget, Lightfoot has taken a more conservative stance on one of the most divisive issues this year: police brutality. Really, her actions (and inaction) teach us that Black faces in high places are not the solution to our problems.
However, no charges were brought for Taylor’s death. After the trial, some jury members said that “prosecutors were dismissive of their questions and that there was an ‘uproar’ when jurors realized Louisville police officers wouldn’t be charged with Taylor’s death,” CNN reported.
Kentucky’s Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, is a Black man. Yet, under his direction, prosecutors failed to prosecute the officers who murdered an innocent Black woman. Taylor’s death went on to symbolize the lack of care for Black women, and Cameron’s actions demonstrated that other Black people can be responsible for the dismissal of our human rights.
So, when we say we want to elect more Black people into office, we must act with scrutiny about the type of Black person we are electing. As the saying goes, all skin folk are not kin folk. Another example of how this quote plays out in politics is with Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta.
A shot of Spelman’s campus. (Javanna Plummer / Rwebel Media)
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Regrading housing, Bottoms boasted a $200 Million initiative that was going to allow low-income families the opportunity to stay in the city of Atlanta. Yet, according to Atlanta Journal Constitution, the money that Bottoms office was supposed to raise was already coming out of the city’s budget.
for those of you who are improperly reporting why my graduating class and I do not support KLB as our commencement speaker, this is why we, collectively, are against it: #NotKeisha pic.twitter.com/PYjWhSFVcE
— tk (@tkyonce) April 24, 2019
Yet, housing was not the only concern Spelman students had about Bottoms. They were also concerned that, despite the Atlanta Police Department killing 26 unarmed Black people in 2019, Bottoms gave police a $10 Million budget increase.
Like Lightfoot and Cameron, Bottoms is yet another example of a Black face in a prominent political office who has had a history of anti-Black policies. Still, she is praised for joining protesters last summer and challenging Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp for reopening the state prematurely during the pandemic.
Atlanta’s Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. (Wikimedia Commons)
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Both made history by being elected into the highest offices in the world, and both have a record of anti-Black practices. For Obama, this was recently culminated in his insensitive comments toward defunding the police.
He deemed it a “snappy slogan,” and many pushed back on this categorization of it. Notably, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar corrected President Obama and said that it was not a snappy slogan but a policy demand. She tweeted, “We lose people in the hands of police. It’s not a slogan but a policy demand. And centering the demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country gets us progress and safety.”
We lose people in the hands of police. It’s not a slogan but a policy demand. And centering the demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country gets us progress and safety. https://t.co/Vu6inw4ms7
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 2, 2020
On the same vein, Kamala Harris is celebrated as America’s first Black and South Asian woman Vice President, but her record as a prosecutor raises concerns for many. For one, she once boasted herself as California’s “Top Cop,” according to the New York Times.
Sometimes, this yielding to the status quo meant that she would secure America’s reputation as the “top jailer,” wrote Lara Bazelon for The Appeal. Her record includes holding wrongfully convicted inmates in prison, denying gender affirming healthcare for a trans woman, and calling a proposition to decriminalize sex work “completely ridiculous.” Yet, when running for President, she positioned herself as a progressive candidate, Bazelon noted. She added, “It is understandable that Harris would want to claim the progressive prosecutor label—it is trending nationally now.”
When it’s not trending, will she still hold these same policies? That’s a question we should be asking of her, Lightfoot, and Bottoms while recognizing that politicians like Cameron remind us that all skin folk are not kin folk. ~ℝ
JAVANNA PLUMMER, RWEBEL IN CHIEF
Javanna is the editor of “Rwebel Magazine,” the architect behind “Rwebel Radio,” and the pioneering force of “Xscape.” Through her words, Javanna hopes to inspire creativity, passion and forward-thinking.
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