Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-CA) just tore up and spat out some anti-DEI racists who appeared in a congressional hearing on DEI. I mean, she told them all to go to hell in such a way that they were looking forward to the trip!
The victims, er, witnesses were chumps from big name stink tanks from across the country, including Dan Lennington of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Judge Glock of the Manhattan Institute, and Erec Smith of the Cato Institute. It should be noted that the misnamed Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is a subsidiary of the Bradley Foundation, a dark money group that is a strong proponent of white supremacy, and WILL has been frequently representing poor, oppressed, white men who were denied the advantages of a inherent racist system.
When Simon had the floor, she told them exactly what’s what:
This is a very, very difficult conversation. I’m a great granddaughter of someone who had a literal yoke on her neck, a literal yoke. And I will give the four and a half minutes of my time to my people from Malvern, Arkansas, from those fields.
And I want to be clear that four out of the five of you, last year, posted on your social media the words of Dr. King. And there are so few folks who actually have studied, who are clear on the theology of freedom of King. Very few of you have read and studied and have sat in Ebenezer Baptist Church. So, I would ask you, you keep Dr. King’s name out of your mouth.
If you, like me and the many scholars who will be watching, studied King, you know that he and the mothers and the fathers of the Civil Rights Movement and of the movement for emancipation not only would be struck by the conversations in this room, but would be shattered by the consequence of lives, of hatred, of abuse of this administration in the name of folks who worked to make this country more free, children of Abraham, for real. I want to be clear for the young people that are listening today here in this audience, this conversation is not about an acronym. It’s just not. It’s just not. This is a conversation. It’s an attack. It’s an attack on what you see right here.
Now see, who’s on this side of the dais? This was never the plan. It was never the plan to have people of color in positions where they would be able to speak from this place. In fact, in fact, folks had to fight tooth and nail to gain access to the front door to this capital. I want to be very clear about that.
Today’s hearing says quietly and actually out loud who the majority believe is allowed to belong in this country. They use Dr. King’s name in deep vain who has a place in the hierarchy that was never meant to be questioned. The majority is leading a coordinated effort, I want to be clear, to push us back to a segregated America based on race, based on ethnicity, based on national origin, based on sex, based on sexual orientation, and gender identity, and disability. Inclusion as a disabled woman, they have been very, very clear. Including folks who look different than the standardized white man in this country, folks who are disabled, folks who love differently. Those folks should not be at the center of power. That’s the plan. They are motivated by a fear, a fear of a multiracial and a multicultural democracy, a fear, a fear that freedom of co-equal citizens living as their authentic selves with pride, and a fear. They have a fear of accountability.
We must name this conversation today for what it truly is. It is a bigotry. It is a hypocrisy. Republicans, like I said before, will quote Dr. King all day, will bring forth Lincoln, and will talk about Frederick Douglass in the same breath that they are gutting civil rights offices in our governments, in the same breath where they seek to ban A.P. African American studies that tells the true story of this country. It ain’t just one story, it is a complete.story, but folks on this dais don’t want you to learn it.
The hypocrisy from the Republicans is not only shameful, it is anti-American. President Trump and others have purged more than 275,000 federal workers through mass terminations and unlawful firings. While, check this out. Preparing draft hiring guidance that would screen job applicants for political loyalty to the administration rather than the Constitution, the Trump administration put 500,000 qualified, qualified, federal workers with disabilities jobs at risk, half of those are veterans. The Trump administration has forced out transgender service members who have served their country with loyalty and love while elevating dangerously unqualified news anchors to lead our nation’s defense department. The Trump administration rewards loyalty over expertise, obedience over justice. These attacks are central to a broader agenda.
Let me just finish this one sentence that criminalizes protests, that bans books, that erases history and redefines its national identity in narrow and violent terms. A 1950s America is what the goal of this conversation is, and some of us say hell no.
So, we have a group of white people who are trying to quash anyone who doesn’t meet all the qualifications on their Aryan checklist. At this point, can anyone say that they can Nazi where they want to go with this?
I’m just glad that we have people like Simon, AOC, and others who are not backing down against this blatant and egregious racism and bigotry.
