Editorial: We the People

by Ethan Vesely-Flad

Two years ago, a former community organizer was elected president of the world’s most wealthy and militarily powerful nation. In making history, Barack Obama inspired us as an intellectual with activist credentials. Based on his experience as a constitutional law professor, we felt assured of his commitment to civil liberties and human rights, and his outspoken early opposition to the immoral Iraq war encouraged us that it would soon be over. And Obama’s multilayered family story embodied the diverse racial and religious backgrounds that make up our nation’s magnificent tapestry.

Now halfway into the Obama presidency’s first term, many in our progressive community have become profoundly discouraged.

The wars drag on; Guantanamo and Bagram prisons continue to detain unknown suspects without trial; the FBI is raiding homes of anti-war activists; and no progress has been seen on climate change, immigration reform, campaign finance restrictions, and cutting the U.S. military budget. As this issue went to press, conservatives were mobilizing to take back numerous seats in the U.S. Congress, possibly reclaiming both the House and the Senate. Combined with the string of recent Supreme Court decisions that reflect the opinions of its activist conservative majority, a Republican Congress would dash hopes for forward movement in Washington on any of these justice issues.

Meanwhile, in spite of the president’s unique background, there is growing evidence of racial and religious hatred across the nation. Islamophobia has spread rapidly through right-wing talk radio and fundamentalist Christian communities, particularly in reaction to New York City’s Park51 development effort. President Obama is widely believed to be a Muslim, and thereby an adherent of “radical Islam.” (As Ibrahim Ramey reports in these pages, there is a “significant self-interrogation going on in America about the issue of religious freedom.”) And the first African-American president has frustrated many by not forcefully addressing the issue of race, despite numerous opportunities.

What happened? Didn’t we elect the individual who would lead the “Change” on behalf of our outrage against a quarter-century of regressive policies?

Two thoughtful and inspiring activists remind us that what we desire from our president is what we actually seek from within.

Billy Wimsatt is one of today’s most entrepreneurial social changemakers. He cofounded great organizations and coalitions like the Active Element Foundation and the League of Pissed-Off Voters, and his writing is radical yet reasoned, inciting while insightful. In his new book, Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs, Wimsatt looks at how social movements emerge and grow. Specifically, he discusses his coming to consciousness around the importance of elections — a topic that may seem obvious to you, but Wimsatt exposes why countless young people, even “politicized” ones, until recently didn’t vote.

Wimsatt’s career has been dedicated to mentoring and empowering youth, and they are his primary audience in Please Don’t—. So, while he champions the Obamas (both Barack and Michelle), he says “their” election was a testimony to, and built upon, the work of a youth-led emerging progressive majority. Wimsatt writes, “I have no illusions about [the Obamas’] shortcomings. And in part because of that, I am deeply inspired about who they actually are, what they have achieved so far, and how we can build on their progress. It’s our job to learn from and support them, create more [progressive] political space for them, and draw on their success so that our generation can do even better.”

Vincent Harding was the primary author of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous April 4, 1967 “Time to Break Silence” speech, which I argue remains the defining framework for our peace and justice community’s work today. Dr. Harding, like Wimsatt, is deeply committed to intergenerational engagement and to supporting young people to realize and actualize their power. Interviewed by Lucas Johnson in this issue, Harding reminds us that our culture idolizes “celebrityness” and that “—our major task as members of a democratic society is to stop focusing on what we expect from the president! And to ask, what do we expect from ourselves to push the president to his best possibilities, or her best possibilities.”

Take heart; there is good news. In June, some 15,000 justice activists gathered at the second U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, to explore creative ways to build together a new world through local actions. Issues such as food justice, immigrant rights, LGBTQ activism, and green jobs were all the rage. Three months later, at least 150,000 rallied in the nation’s capital for the One Nation: Working Together mobilization, representing an unprecedented national coalition of unions, civil rights organizations, anti-war networks, new immigrant communities, and environmental groups. While the One Nation planning process was difficult and often top-down, the October 2 event laid the groundwork for exciting new alliances. Just one week later, on October 10, more than a thousand rallies and actions addressing the climate crisis were held in over 135 countries, organized by 350.org and ally global groups. And as you’ll discover in this issue’s special “Forum” of essays by 11 diverse activists (and others whose commentaries are posted exclusively online at forusa.org), grassroots action and visioning for social change is happening across our world.

Yes, for many of us in the progressive community, it is hard to comprehend that that “hope” thing wasn’t about hoping for someone to come and “save” us. Rather, our deepest hope was that we might realize our own capacity for growth and change. We the people have, as the PBS series reminded us, a “force more powerful” than any individual leader can reflect, or contain. In a nod to Dr. Harding, let the river flow.

Ethan Vesely-Flad

editor@forusa.org