John,
Ayanna Pressley is one of the strongest champions for racial justice in Congress today.
She’s bold. She’s effective. She’s committed.
And that’s why clout-chasing Republican presidential candidates are attacking her.
Let me be clear: when someone calls a Black Congresswoman a leader of the modern KKK not only are they dead wrong but they are wielding deeply dangerous rhetoric, the kind of rhetoric that has cost Black folks their lives.
It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. They’re trying to stir up animosity, seed violence, and get their faces on the news - any way they can.
Ayanna said it best:
“It is deeply offensive. And it is dangerous. It is not that long ago that we were besieged by images of white supremacists carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville. It was not that long ago that a white supremacist mob seized the Capitol, waving Confederate flags and erecting nooses on the West Lawn of the Capitol.”
“In one of my childhood memories that is deeply embedded in that my own ancestors and living family members have been brutalized, lynched, raped by the Ku Klux Klan. I recall when my family member had moved into a predominantly white cul-de-sac in the ’80s when I was a child. And we had a cross burned in our lawn.”
“So, for me, as deeply shameful and offensive and dangerous as his words are, he is not occupying any real estate in my mind. I remain squarely focused on the work of undoing the centuries of harm that has precisely been done to Black Americans and charting a path of true restorative justice and racial justice forward.”
We’ll always call out these racist and bad faith attacks when they happen, but we won’t be distracted.
While Republican candidates are invoking her name to fan the flames of white supremacy, Ayanna is focused on advocating and legislating to dismantle systems of oppression and advance racial equity.
In solidarity,
Summer Lee
