US leaders are erasing Black history. That threatens our future
By: Stacey Abrams and Esosa Osa (the Guardian)
Right out of the gate, first line: "Democracy flourishes when Black Americans advance." This shit is why Donald J. Trump is President of the United States.
By now we all know, in intricate detail, the history of how Blacks were treated (and mistreated) in the United States. We should all be well aware of that wound on the history and culture of the United States. Now read the article carefully. The intent of this article is to rip off the scab and pour salt in the wound.
Black leaders have not done one damned thing to improve race relations around the world or in the United States. Their only claim to fame is reopening old wounds and holding back the Black population. Stacey Abrams would be nothing without that legacy. Stacey Abrams only talent is to tear off scabs, pour salt in old wounds, and hold back the Black population.
Pay close attention, Stacey Abrams is not attributing progress to Black people. The Black population is not responsible for Black progress (whatever that means). Benevolent institutions are the source of Black progress. Only government, with people like Abrams controlling that government, can provide Black progress.
Stacey Abrams is not lifting up Black people; she is actually holding them back for her own benefit.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democracy flourishes when Black Americans advance. The evidence is clear: birthright citizenship, constitutional due process, anti-discrimination laws from education to housing to employment and equitable small business investments, are all byproducts of the systemic corrections known today as DEI. Yet, in recent years, DEI has been used as a smokescreen by cynical politicians and activists to roll back progress and consolidate power. Across classrooms, museums, boardrooms and federal agencies, the key pathways to opportunity and success are under attack through a coordinated disinformation campaign of erasure, distortion and suppression.
The impact of these tactics is concrete and undeniable. Since the start of this year, Onyx Impact's research has found, 306,000 Black women have lost their jobs and $3.4bn in grant programs investing in Black communities has been slashed - including $9.4m in sickle cell disease research, $42m in programs designed to address Black maternal mortality and $31m in cuts to address asthma rates and air pollution harming Black children.
Concerted attempts to stifle the progress of Black communities is not new; however, history has proven that when progress for Black people is erased, everyone suffers. During Reconstruction, Black Americans made extraordinary strides - holding office, building businesses and founding schools. Less discussed is how other oppressed communities, from white sharecroppers to Latino gauchos, also benefited from increased access to legal and economic systems. When Black people faced a century of Jim Crow and state-sanctioned discrimination, other communities saw a similar retreat on their access to full citizenship. When the civil rights movement sought to eliminate the vestiges of Jim Crow, its practices of nonviolent civil disobedience expanded freedom and opportunity not just for Black Americans, but for communities of all backgrounds. From the Native American movement to the advancement of gay rights to women's economic empowerment, Black civil rights opened the aperture for expanded human rights.
Nevertheless, every time Black communities gain ground, forces threatened by change work to push us back. As we face the current regime, DEI is the bulwark that guarantees a pluralistic democracy. Its power is rooted not in politics, but in the promise of America itself: that all people are created equal and deserve a chance to thrive. Defending DEI, accurate historical education and equitable access to opportunity protects the very principles that allow our nation to live up to its highest ideals. Authoritarians and their acolytes despise DEI because it secures the rights of all.
And when we do not recognize this, the consequences are immediate and real. The newly released Onyx Impact report, Blackout: The Real-World Cost of Erasing, Distorting, and Suppressing Black Progress, documents more than 15,000 instances, in just nine months, where Black lives, histories and pathways to success have been directly harmed or erased by the Trump administration and their legislative and judicial cronies. This report provides not only a stark account of harm but also a way forward. Its rigorous, data-driven analysis empowers citizens, journalists and policymakers to recognize the instances and patterns of erasure, distortion and suppression.
We must, though, understand these attacks as part of a deliberate campaign. The goal is to rewrite our nation's story and restrict the futures of Black Americans, and by extension, any American deemed unworthy. We can be tempted to view their actions in isolation, but that is by design.
Distortion is one of the most insidious tactics. It reshapes reality in ways that narrow our expectations and cements bigotry as policy. Scholarships and education programs are being cut, leaving Black students with fewer chances to pursue a quality education. These cuts also affect Native American students and served as a predicate for attacks on Hispanic students. Black families continue to live in districts with underfunded schools due to historical patterns of segregation and inequality, and the concomitant effect of slashing services disproportionately harms all low-income children and disabled people. Support for Black-owned businesses and vital health initiatives have been slashed, leaving our nation without the data necessary to address systemic disparities in our economy and healthcare system. The follow-on effect will undermine research and investment for women across racial categories. By rewriting who counts, who is valued and what histories are taught, these policies compound the barriers that communities have fought for centuries to overcome.
Erasure and suppression work in tandem, and practitioners predictably start with Black America. Those seeking to cripple democracy have removed Black stories from curricula, exhibits and public memory, costing us the lessons of confrontation, remediation and redemption. Rising autocracies know to pressure schools, universities, corporations and government institutions into silence. Together, these tactics do more than harm Black communities - they hollow out our democracy itself. Civic trust erodes, economic opportunity narrows and our national narrative becomes dangerously incomplete.
The question before us now is: what will we do in response? Will we allow fear, disinformation and autocracy to write the next chapter? Or will we act, fiercely and deliberately, to defend the truth, honor Black progress and protect the right to opportunity for every American? The answer will shape not just this moment, but the very future of our country.
Protecting and defending the historic progress we've made is a moral imperative, one that demands concerted civil action. As the struggle for liberation has taught us, when we fight for freedom, we win. We absolutely face coordinated attacks on truth, which are intended to sow despair or lead to inaction - but we cannot allow that. The 10 Steps campaign, a nationwide mobilization effort to protect democracy, provides a clear playbook for understanding the threat that faces our country and the roadmap for action, helping individuals and communities navigate this moment and demand freedom and power. Additionally, Onyx Impact documents information threats, amplifies truth and equips communities to resist the harmful false narratives that are used to rationalize the dismantling of our democracy.
When linked, these initiatives show that protecting Black history and progress is a shared responsibility if we are to defend America - a responsibility that demands action from every corner of society.
Our nation's future will not arrive on its own. Its success or failure will be determined by what we choose to do and resist today.
America's story began by deciding that from many, we could become one. E pluribus unum is the essence of DEI, the lived reality of the Black experience and the proof that we can build something bigger than fear and despair. Together, we can preserve opportunity, honor truth and strengthen our democracy for generations to come.
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Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia in 2018 and 2022, is the founder of American Pride Rises, a group dedicated to defending the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
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Esosa Osa is the founder and CEO of Onyx Impact, an organization created to fight digital harm, amplify Black voices and create healthier online ecosystems
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The chosen image is ironic because Dwight Eisenhower deployed the military to integrate schools. It was Democrats who barricaded the schoolhouse door.
Stacy Abrams stands upon the Democratic Party's history of institutionalizing slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and all manner of racist government policies. Abrams rhetoric and demagoguery is actually more consistent with that political past than people are willing to concede.
No offense, but only morons dont see the two political parties have switched ideologies on race over the past 75 years.
No, Democrats have the same ideology, they've just changed who they want to use the power of the government to discriminate against.
And shill for, ie, criminals and illegals.
That is what the civil rights con-artists keep telling us. How many times must a lie be repeated before it becomes truth?
Black Americans were legally second class citizens until 1964. Sixty years ago. That is not enough time for racism to naturally have dissolved. There are people alive today that could have been involved in anti-civil rights protests. And there are a shitload of people alive today who are children or grandchildren of people who opposed civil rights and called blacks jungle bunnies and jigaboos. To claim there is no widespread racism today is to claim that those parents and grandparents were total failures at instilling their values in their children. It takes multiple generations to leech the racism out of the society, not one or two.
Anyone who says they dont know a lot of racists is full of shit, unless they live in some sort of closed social circle. In that case then they should feel blessed and fortunate.
And the history of how the democrats fought that change is there for all to see. Even today, their stance on it hasn't changed much.
This is evidenced by their reaction when a black person switches from Democratic to Republican.
The true racism of the democratic party comes out in full.
We've all (white and Black) been nagged about that for sixty years. A rich Black dude screws up, gets caught, and suddenly they're a slave in chains. And Black leaders are not outraged over reprehensible behavior; the leaders are up in arms because the dude got caught.
Claiming there isn't widespread racism today makes Democrats identity politics irrelevant. Without racism Stacy Abrams wouldn't have anything to stir up political shit. That's the only thing she's got.
I'm a damned racist for objecting to the politics of racial disadvantage. I'm a damned racist for saying there has to be a better way. Hell, I'm a damned racist just because I don't feel guilty about stuff that happened before I was born.
I dont know whether or not you are racist. But people who pretend white racism is fixed are not on the right track.
Somehow, I suspect that if white racism was that big a problem we sure wouldn't be hearing Black people complain about it.