The epic freedom struggle continues. I'm feeling hopeful.

SNCC Poster, 1963, Photography by Danny Lyon

Woke up this morning with my mind

Stayed on freedom 

I woke up this morning with my head still ringing with music from Danny Lyon's new film, SNCC, and clear as a bell about the line connecting the great freedom struggle of the '50s and '60s with today's election. Win or lose, for me, this campaign was never simply about electing Joe Biden. Rather, it's about being part of a movement for freedom and social justice for the past 60 years, a movement that transcends party politics. 

This is definitely a which side are you on election like none other in my lifetime, save possibly Barack Obama's first campaign in '08. It's one that has certainly captured the democratic spirit of tens of millions from the heartland of the midwest to the so-called red states of the south and southwest. 

As the polls open this morning, nearly 100 million of us have already voted, more than two-thirds of the number of votes cast in the entire 2016 election.

Black and Latino voter turnout will likely hold the key to a Democratic victory, especially in southern and midwestern swing states. 

Of note... 239,822 African American voters over the age of 65 have already voted in Georgia, a state that has been red for the past three decades. That's 124% of the total 2016 turnout for African American seniors. Latino voters in GA are also turning out in record numbers. That state's results should be coming in early tonight and along with FL, should be a strong indicator of where things are headed. 

The ChiTown vote... More than 738,000 Chicagoans have already cast ballots in person or by mail, blowing past the city's early voting records set in 2016. I'm not worried about the Trump vote here IL. I'm just hoping that a giant turnout will mean State's Attorney Kim Foxx is reelected and the FairTax Amendment passes.  

All this and more, leaves me feeling hopeful about today's outcome. My hope is a massive anti-Trump vote will also bring a victory for Democrats down-ticket and return the Senate majority blue.

Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout have apparently fallen flat. This will likely leave Trump the choice of either conceding or more likely, resorting to futile attempts at sabotage or other counter-electoral or violent efforts to hang onto power. 

Defeating Trump today, if that happens, won't mean the death of Trumpism, neo-fascism, or white supremacy. That fight will likely continue for generations to come. But it will still mark an important victory in the long, ongoing freedom struggle and a reversal of the retrograde trend of the past four years. 

 

I voted today. It was one of the most emotional experiences I've had since becoming American. I wanted to hug every poll worker & thank them for their work & enthusiasm. I'm frightened, as many of you are, but the country we want is here, standing next to us. #VoteHimOut pic.twitter.com/MzipAtSZ9I

— Maaza Mengiste (@MaazaMengiste) October 31, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Oklahoma City Thunder players kneel during anthem despite a threat from GOP state lawmaker 

Nikole Hannah-Jones on Bill Clinton's hit on Kwame Ture

Literally cringed. Stokley was radicalized differently after getting arrested for the 27th time fighting for civil rights in Greenwood. He decided from then on if white people hit him, he was going to hit back... One can eulogize Congressman John Lewis without demonizing other freedom fighters you didn’t agree with. -- The Grio

Hasan Kwame Jeffries

This mischaracterization of Carmichael serves a purpose. It allows people to dismiss his critique of America. -- Washington Post Op-ed

IL Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton

 “What would any of us want for our own children if they had to go to a facility like this? Do we want them in large, cinder block warehouses? Or would we want our children to be in home-like or dorm-like facilities?” Stratton said in explaining the “my child standard.” -- Chicago Tribune

Rev. William Barber and Bernice King

Removing monuments is the easy part. We must make America a real democracy... In fact, many who support flags and statues coming down today also advocate voter suppression, attack healthcare and re-segregate our schools. -- Guardian

I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

Ben Zimmer, contributing writer

The political play here is not hard to decipher. Trump feels he needs to portray “the suburbs” as under an imminent threat to provoke racist fears among white voters. -- The Atlantic

Rep. Raúl Grijalva after testing positive for COVID-19 

“While I cannot blame anyone directly for this, this week has shown that there are some members of Congress who fail to take this crisis seriously,” he said. “Numerous Republican members routinely strut around the Capitol without a mask to selfishly make a political statement at the expense of their colleagues, staff, and their families.” -- 
Guardian

Celtics guard, Jaylen Brown

Jaylen Brown: "Angela Davis once said that racism is so dangerous, not because of individual actors, because it's deeply embedded in the apparatus."

— Bobby Krivitsky (@BobbyKrivitsky) August 2, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Hawking

Stephen Hawking on Trump

“He is a demagogue, who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.” -- The Daily Good

White supremacist leader Matthew Heimbach

 “… Hail, Emperor Trump and hail victory.” -- Think Progress

SNCC veteran Charlie Cobb

“No U.S. president will ever fully embrace their concerns. If you want a president to even be interested in your concerns, however, you have to organize to generate the pressure. That begins with the vote, in my view, although obviously it does not end with voting.” -- Washington Post

Troy LaRaviere

 "I get no satisfaction from Rahm's diminished role nationally," said LaRaviere, a Sanders delegate. "Except for the message that it sends to the people who have been behind him: They're wrong." -- Tribune

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Julian Bond (1940-2015)

As former President Jimmy Carter told former SNCC worker and author Mary King, “if you wanted to scare white people in Southwest Georgia, Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference wouldn’t do it. You only had to say one word—SNCC.” -- Monthly Review

Adolph Reed

Kristen McQueary’s attempt to walk back from her scurrilous column of last Thursday extolling the wonderful changes that the devastation of Katrina brought to New Orleans is basically an unpology—and an even more empty, uninformed word salad than the original. The issue isn’t what she was feeling when she wrote what she wrote; it’s what she wrote. -- LBO News

N.Y. State United Teachers Pres. Karen Magee 

"Student test scores based on poorly written, developmentally inappropriate Pearson tests, in a year in which record numbers of parents repudiated the state's standardized testing program by `opting out,' aren't worth the paper they are printed on." -- Huffington

Columnist Myra Blackmon

“This is how the self-selected “education reformers” operate. Their motive is profit and personal advancement. They love the idea of schools run by private organizations, staffed with uncertified teachers, cherry-picking the easy students and leaving the most vulnerable students behind. Unproven, invalid standardized tests drive every decision. -- Athens Banner Herald (h/t Diane Ravitch)

DR. KING WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Still whistling Dixie in AR

Dr. Martin Luther King

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. -- The Purpose Of Education

Andrew Wilkes on "Pentecostal piety"

 The civil rights movement saw black folks (and non-black folks) consecrate the American dream by way of the prophetic Baptist theology of Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, yes. But it also involved the anointed agnosticism of Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s founding executive director and the generative force of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating committee, Ella Baker. The radical Quaker vision of a Bayard Rustin next to the ethical humanism of an Asa Phillip Randolph were also blended in. And also in the mix was the subtle, yet significant tradition of faith-filled lay activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Marian Wright Edelman. -- The Guardian

Detroit hip-hop artist Mic Write

What does it mean for our community for there to be this vacant space where there used to be a life? Where have those people gone? What is left for them?" -- Mother Jones

Morris Dees, Founder, Southern Poverty Law Center

We've seen the results: voter suppression, corporate hegemony in Washington, a shrinking social safety net, and mass incarceration. Our schools are increasingly segregated, and the headlines this past week tell us that the majority of our public school students now live in poverty. -- Huff Post

Prof. Charles Payne, author of "I've Got The Light of Freedom"

The movement managed to ameliorate the most blatant features of white supremacy; it didn’t end it. Given that the net wealth of white households is 13 times that of black ones, given that too many black children are coming to maturity in life-limiting ghettos — and the notion that the black ghetto and the ethnic ghettos of the past can be equated is simply a lie — given unprecedented levels of incarceration, given that James Baldwin’s comment about the police in black neighborhoods being regarded as an occupying army still has too much truth, given that blacks and other non-whites are treated superficially in the curricula of most schools, if they are present at all, the last thing we need is a new movement. We need to finish the old one. 
The struggle continues. -- New York Times