Talk to ’em when you see ’em. This is an American tradition.
America’s mayors will tell you that they get input from their constituents every single day. Says Steve Benjamin (D – Columbia, SC) ” They see us every day in church, in synagogue, in mosque, in the grocery store, at the traffic light. You roll down your window, you get some advice.”
Our federal employees are not sacred. Non-violently calling out our misbehaving and corrupt public figures when we see them, done peacefully, is not destroying civilization as we know it. This woman’s discussion with Pruitt may have been the coup de grace of his DC career.
Sign this letter to Nancy Pelosi. She seems to have forgotten this tradition.
Here’s the link to the letter to make it easier to share.
Here’s the link for signing the letter.
Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi
Dear Representative Pelosi,
We are writing to you today to ask you to do better.
We, like you, are white women who care deeply about the direction in which our country is headed, and who believe that inaction in the face of oppression is unacceptable. Because we share those goals, we hope and expect that you will do the work to understand why we are so deeply disappointed and angry about your recent statements regarding your colleague, Representative Maxine Waters. We urge you to consider how you can better use your power to support Representative Waters and the struggle for liberation for all Americans.
White women have been culpable throughout history for acting — or, just as shamefully, not acting — in ways that support white supremacy. Suffragist and first woman Senator Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton exemplified this ugly history when she used race as a tool to rally reluctant white women to the cause of women’s suffrage, saying: “I do not want to see a negro man walk to the polls and vote on who should handle my tax money, while I myself cannot vote at all.”
To our great discredit, white women continue to act far too often in ways that support white supremacy, even when it is to our detriment. Time and time again, we have seen women of color show up to the polls to support progressive politics, while white women cling to the regressive, and often racist, politics and politicians who long for yesteryear.
Why should Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kirstjen Nielsen get to walk through a ceaselessly accommodating world, unchallenged by the public, never being forced to grapple with their daily complicity in what will be — what is already being — judged as a particularly dark moment in the history of our country? They are white women backing racist, xenophobic policies, and to ask that your colleague act “appropriately” at a time like this only serves to sustain white supremacy.
As of 10:00AM ET on July 5, 2018, the total number of signatories is 4,422
*denotes a constituent of Rep. Pelosi