A Hero For Our Times
By 
One of the real heroic acts of the modern age was when Bree Newsome (now Bree Newsome Bass) climbed the flag pole at the South Carolina statehouse to take the down the Treason in Defense of Slavery flag. That act really started the modern era of attacking and now defeating the racist revanchist elements of society so determined to defend our history of racism and colonialism. With the movement having leapt a century in two weeks (protest works!), it’s interesting to hear her perspective.
Ms. Newsome Bass believes this year’s presidential election is the most significant election since the Civil War. Americans, she said, have to decide whether the United States is going to be a multicultural, multiracial, democratic nation where people get to vote.
“That doesn’t mean everybody agrees on everything,” she said. “But what we do all have to agree on is that we are all citizens, that we are all human and we’re all entitled to these rights.”
She added: “And then the other side is white supremacy. You can’t reconcile those things now anymore than you could in 1860.”
Although some people see the current protests as a blip, a show of anger that can’t be sustained or that won’t result in change, Ms. Newsome Bass said that she had noticed a shift from demonstrations in previous years. Just a few weeks ago, for example, people weren’t willing to entertain the idea of abolishing the institution of policing, she said, but now it’s a topic being discussed by legislators and being pushed for by many citizens, including white people who are acknowledging, and speaking about, racial inequalities in policing for the first time.
“It’s always great when we get to the point where people who didn’t recognize before recognize,” she said. “That said, it’s a very traumatic experience for everyone who already understands and everyone who’s already just waiting for it to happen again. It’s a collective traumatic experience.”
The protests and conversations happening now are part of the same fight that took place in 2014 in the wake of Michael Brown’s death, in 1992 after Rodney King was beaten, and during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. But a significant shift Ms. Newsome Bass has noticed in the recent protests has been around the way people talk about protesting and voting. In the past, she said, the Democratic establishment supported the idea that African-Americans should move beyond protesting and focus on voting. But now, she added, more people are open to the idea that protesting and voting go hand in hand.
“The two things are both part of being a full citizen and participating in the society,” she said.
I could not agree more about the importance of both protest and voting.