The following is a copy of the excellent thoughts that Brittany Packnett Cunningham posted on Twitter on March 10, the evening of the Tuesday after Super Tuesday, when Joe Biden had another big night over Bernie Sanders. Regardless of which nominee you back in this one race, these are tough but wise words.
I fear that the popularization of protest has folks confused about it.
Disciplined direct action has a target, strategy, and demands.
When you don’t get what you want, you keep pushing.
If you don’t get the nominee you want, you push the one you get to progressive policies.
The idea that you just quit when you don’t get the first win is not only selfish, it is, to be clear, an affront to the discipline of organizing, protest and direct action.
Your heroes *did not* throw up their hands when they didn’t get what they want. Literally none of them.
Activism and organizing are hard, taxing, long term, personal, relational, intense pursuits that require study, discipline, and COMMITMENT.
It is not episodic. It is not one and done. It is committed to the vision more than the visionary.
Your guy doesn’t clench the nomination? Well, we STILL need clean air, clean water, economic revolution, peace, justice and jobs.
You giving up on all that because your guy doesn’t win means you give up on yourself & the rest of us.
Stay committed. Push the winner. Get it done.
LBJ was a whole racist.
Like, n*ggER, hard -ER racist.
What if MLK has just thrown up his hands like KENNEDY OR NOBODY after the assassination?
He pushed LBJ. We got two Civil Rights Acts and a Voting Rights Act our of it. [link]
Stop tying your power and your freedom up in a single leader.
That is and never will be the pathway to liberation.
I’d rather have someone we can push than Orange Glo, just like I’d rather have had Hillary than this. [link]
Reduce the harm, get to the best possible outcome, then fight like hell to get what you need done.
With discipline, strategy, and clarity.
Public polling for Medicare for all, Free college and the wealth tax are strong.
Obama was a moderate and he, like many other politicians, changed their opinion and support of marriage equality as public polling changed and disciplined public pressure mounted.
If you give up fighting for your principles when the going gets tough, how committed were you to begin with?
Our elders have been fighting whether or not they had a friend in the White House-and they rarely did.
Let’s get over ourselves and get to work.
Typos all up and thru this thing but yall get it, I hope.
Goodnight. The work resumes in the morning. ??
Love y’all. All of you.