Rashida Tlaib’s Town Hall: “DSA is my chosen family”
by Jonathan Flatley
To kick-off its effort to propel her to re-election, Metro Detroit DSA organized a virtual town hall with Representative Rashida Tlaib on April 13. The event was a part of the chapter’s endorsement process, which concluded with an official endorsement by the membership at its May 2 meeting. Tlaib is being challenged in the August 4 Democratic primary by Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones.
Given her history of activism and standing up to powerful interests, Tlaib is the kind of candidate who can make a leftist hopeful about the possibilities of electoral politics. As Metro Detroit DSA Co-chair Natasha Fernández-Silber noted in her introduction, Tlaib does not care what the wealthy and the elites think — indeed she often offends them! — she just cares about her constituents.
The town hall drew over 100 DSA members on Zoom (and many more viewers on Facebook live). Tlaib’s formidable political energy was on inspiring display, as was her thoughtful, rational and compassionate approach to policy. For over an hour, she took questions from DSA members.
“Broken Systems”
Throughout, Tlaib emphasized the way that the pandemic has exposed the very many broken systems in our society. Indeed, DSA’s exposure of those broken systems is one of the things she most admires about the group. When asked what it means for her to be a member, she responded that it is “an extension of my values and my beliefs.” You all, she said, “are not afraid to talk about how broken the system is . . . where other people are condoning it.”
She joined DSA before she got elected, she said, “primarily because of my lived experience,” which she did not find represented in other organizations. For these reasons, “you guys are my chosen family,” she said.
Groups like DSA are especially important now because “the pandemic is showing all the broken systems.” It is exposing “corporate greed,” which “is a disease in our country.” It is highlighting environmental racism, which is very real in her district, which contains the most polluted zip code in the country. She observed that when she goes to a classroom, often a third of the class suffers from asthma. As we know, exposure to air pollution greatly increases your risk of dying from COVID-19. In short, Tlaib said: “structural racism has shown its ugly face during this crisis.”
“Stitching a New Garment”
Tlaib’s main focus was on what we can do to fight oppression, fix the broken systems and create a new world together. Indeed, she set the mood by posting in the Zoom chat: “Human connection is how we transform our country. We aren’t divided, we are disconnected.” She added: “Radical love is controversial.” We need to respond to this crisis not by “going back to normal,” but by “stitching a new garment,” a phrase she borrowed from the poet Sonia Renee Taylor, and returned to throughout her discussion. We have to take advantage of the momentum now present to fix what is broken, and we need to do this not by focusing on a single person like Bernie Sanders (though we all lament his withdrawal from the race), and instead focus on our power as a group. “It’s about the grassroots.”
It was clear that Tlaib is very much oriented toward the everyday lives of the people in her district; she emphasized the importance of knowing and explaining how policies are affecting people on the ground.
This is reflected in her proposal to “mint the freakin’ coins” to supply people with needed income during this time. Because so many of her constituents don’t have bank accounts, rather than sending them checks that they will have to cash at a check cashing service that charges outrageous rates they should be sent debit cards, which have the advantage of being cheaper (costing the government around 30 cents apiece) than checks (which cost a dollar each).
Likewise, she talked about the importance of explaining what the Green New Deal would mean in ways that people can immediately relate to. We need to talk about the right to clean air, for instance, she argued. Along these lines, she has teamed up with Rep. Andy Levin to get the EPA to enforce its rules, and with Debbie Dingell to sponsor an emergency water act.
She also underscored her strong belief that “housing is a human right” and her enthusiastic support for Medicare for all. She thinks that there is strong support for these policies among the Democrats in Congress, but that there is much work to do in mobilizing the grassroots, work she encouraged DSA to continue.
As part of her campaign, she asked for volunteers to help with wellness check-ins to 13th District constituents. Noting that she is more of a social worker at heart, she said that this “virtual door knocking, asking people how they are doing,” could be a way that we “can use this time to save lives.”
Tlaib reminded everybody at the town hall that she only won in 2018 by 900 votes. Given the powerful and wealthy interests Tlaib has taken on, “they are going to come for me” with attack ads. She knows her “style is a challenge.” “I hear the stories,” she said. “‘She is crazy,’ they say. No, I’m radical.”
In closing, Tlaib urged us to make sure “we outwork them.” “I look forward to creating a new garment with you,” she said. “I look forward to that partnership.”
Complete this form to sign up to volunteer with DSA for Rashida or donate to her re-election campaign here.
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The full text posted by poet Sonya Renee Taylor to social media reads:
There Can Be No Going Back to “Normal”
I feel like the bearer of news that sounds awful but actually is not. We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. we should not long to return my friends. we are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature. What we have been forced to leave behind we needed to leave behind. what is getting us through is what we will need to take forward, all the rest is up to us. DREAM. While have so much time. DREAM of the life you want. DREAM of the world you desire to exist in. look for the places in your new dreams that have parts of the old world and remove them. what is the dream then? from there we can add to the collective weaving of whatever it is that is next. if we are gonna heal, let it be glorious. (mother Beyonce) #covid19 #coronavirus #apocalypse #newyork #Radicalselflove #thebodyisnotanapology
