S08 E1: Solidarity & Strategy: We the Majority Fighting Back

Episode Transcript

Kanya Bennett
Welcome to Pod for the Cause, the official podcast of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund, where we take on the critical civil and human rights issues of our day. We are kicking off season eight and I’m still your host, Kanya Bennett, still coming to you from our nation’s capital, Washington D. C.

Listeners, it’s been a minute since we last connected and in that time a lot has happened and a lot more will continue as our democracy is under attack. We are just one month into the new administration and the hits keep coming. We are faced with executive actions that defy and dis-respect the rule of law and the constitution. They target immigrant families and communities. They got diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, and they compromise the federal work-force to name a few. And I really do mean a few because the list of hits and harms is long. But let me not forget to name the unqualified and extremist executive branch nominees that are making their way through Congress. They promise to push this totalitarian agenda even further. And let’s be crystal clear, that Project 2025 wishlist that nobody wanted to own is the official roadmap for the administration and its cabinets as they work to undermine our democracy.

But we’re not here to get lost in the doom and gloom today or in the weeds of executive orders meant to shock and awe and flood the zone. We’re here to make sense of the chaos. And most importantly, talk about how we, the majority, fight back. From grassroots power and state and local leadership, to federal strategy and coalition building that connects all of these dots. This moment we are in requires action from all of us.

So let’s get to it and welcome our expert guests who reflect the many constituencies that need to come together for this fight. Let me first welcome Mayor Nadia Mohammed of St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Nadia, thank you for joining us today.

Nadia Mohamed
Thank you for having me.

Kanya Bennett
Next, let me introduce Karen Fierro Ruiz, the Federal Advocacy and Policy Manager at United We Dream. Hello, Karen.

Karen Fierro Ruiz
Hi. It’s good to be on.

Kanya Bennett
And last but not least, and no stranger to the leadership conference or Pod for the Cause, we have Sakira Cook, the federal director of policy at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Hi Sakira and welcome back.

Sakira Cook
Hi everyone. Thank you for having me, Kanya.

Kanya Bennett
Nadia, let me start with you. In 2016, Trump’s election sparked a wave of activism. And for many, yourself included, it was a turning that confirmed we need to step up, organize, and we need to run for office. So can you talk a little bit about how that moment shaped your path? What lessons from that time still guide your leadership today and how do you see the response among people at the ground level as you compare now to 2017?

Nadia Mohamed
I think rarely do people ever say that Trump has affected them in a way that is so positive? I think he really changed the trajectory of what I wanted to do in life. Growing up, I grew up in a very immigrant, very African community and family, and so I had thought I was going to be-come a doctor or engineer. The two pre- approved careers.

2016 when he was running for president, he came to the state of Minnesota, and I don’t know if you guys know much about the population of the state of Minnesota, but there was a high population of Somali immigrants here, one of the largest outside of Somalia. And when he came to our state, he insulted and demeaned and dehumanized a lot of people, most notably he called out the Somali community that lived here and said that they made Minnesota terrible or trashed Minnesota and whatnot. And then he moved on to another Midwestern state. I don’t remember what, but rarely do you remember what people have said more so how it made you feel, right? He then proceeded to mimic in a way that is disgusting, a journalist that is differently abled. And so I remember seeing that type of behavior, that blatant racism, xenophobia and every other phobia and isms.

And I remember thinking, this can’t be the guy. This can’t be the person that becomes president. There’s no way. It turns out he was the guy. He turns out he then became president. And at that moment, it really lit a fire under me. What I thought was going to be, I’m going to go and be-come a doctor, an engineer. And these things turned out to be okay, well I don’t feel safe in my community. I don’t know if my community voted for this. Is this what they have in their minds when they think of a president? Matter of fact, is this what they have in their minds when they think of any leadership?

And so it really led me to have community conversations and be at the center of these community conversations and talk about policies, talk about safety, talk about public safety and things like that. And so I’ve done that for about four years throughout his presidency. I think a lot of people were really active only during his presidency and then became inactive. I really was try-ing to push that boundary and the more I got more involved in policy, the more I started to real-ize that they’re all interconnected. So it came from social connection that was rarely there in St. Louis Park because we’re very much socially segregated to housing, to public safety, to climate action, to all these things that I’m like, oh my gosh. The more I pulled on that thread, the more it became undone and the more I got deeply invested. And so eventually I ran for council and then for mayor. And so that’s how that journey started out. I honestly never looked back.

Kanya Bennett
That is amazing, Nadia, we are happy that you have not looked back. And I’m going to circle back on this question, the landscape now, how you see people showing up in this moment in comparison to 2016 when Trump was running, and obviously 2017 when he took office.

But let me circle back to that because I actually, you’ve talked about a few things that have me thinking about Karen and wanting to bring Karen into this conversation. Nadia, you talked about how Trump’s rhetoric, Trump’s policies that were specific to immigrant communities were harmful for immigrant communities, was a light bulb moment when you thought about what we want in a president. What we want in any leader really is I think how you name that.

So Karen, thinking about Trump’s targeting of immigrant communities, United We Dream has seen most of the Trump playbook before. We had an administration where there was a lot of focus on building this border wall, deporting, detaining all folks who are not supposed to be here. This go around. We know that we have executive orders that are causing significant con-sequences on their own, but we also have Congress passing anti- immigrant bills that give some legitimacy to Trump’s actions or certainly make it easier to carry out these executive orders on immigration.

So talk to us a little bit about how United We Dream is pushing back against these bad immigration executive orders and the legislation that Congress is passing that give these EOs life. And again, Karen, you’ve talked about, United We Dream has talked about how we all have a role to play in this. So how is your pushback incorporating folks at local, state and federal levels?

Karen Fierro Ruiz
For those who are not familiar with who United We Dream is, so we are the largest immigrant youth- led organization in the country made for and by immigrant youth in the early two thou-sands during the original Dream Act fight of 2010. So we’ve been doing this for quite a bit of time. I want to say that this last year we celebrated our quinceañera, which it just means 15 years of being around. So this isn’t our first time going through a very hostile administration.

During Trump 1.0, we were making sure that we were educating our community, we were bringing allies along and making sure that as we saw these attacks on Muslim communities, on immigrant communities, that we were reacting and responding immediately so that the administration understood that this was not something that immigrant youth would allow in the country. One of the very first responses that we had when we knew that Trump was running again for the second time was as an organization, we met with our membership. We talked to them about what this really meant. We knew that from the very first moment we were going to take Trump by his word. When he said that he was going to do mass deportations, we knew that was coming. When he said that he was going to try to attack birthright citizenship, we knew that was coming as well. We made sure that as a membership, all of our affiliates, all of those who follow us on our social media, were getting trained on what is political power, how do we also organize at a grassroots level, how do we make sure that we are approaching this next administration in the most unified way as possible? So we were making sure that our grassroots affiliates were supported, that they were also working on state and local policies because we knew once the administration went over to Trump again, we would have much less ability to move things along within the administration.

And also, we made sure to have a strategic approach to Congress and push for as many progressive members of Congress to be a part of our current Congress and also to make sure that those who are current champions knew that we were behind them and knew that we were watching what Democrats will be doing in response to the Trump administration. In terms of his executive orders and the attacks that we’ve seen so far, we have made sure that we’re working in collaboration with other immigration orgs to sue the government, make sure that these executive orders don’t get further than they have already, to have dedicated approaches to Congress so that they’re hearing from us and they’re hearing against voting for things like the Laken Riley Bill, which unfortunately passed and reinforced many of Trump’s deportation priorities. All of that is what United We Dream is doing right now. It’s not just us as advocates, but it is hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth, both with DACA, both without, those who are parents of un-documented families who are in this fight with us and they’re keeping an eye on what’s happening from the administration.

This time around in Trump 2. 0, we are much more aware of what our rights are and how we can defend each other as a community as seen by the raids that happened in Chicago not too long ago. So it’s been a lot of work. I’ll say my work has gotten way more busy now under the Trump administration than before, but it’s one that we as United We Dream we’re not doing alone, and really we’re working both across the immigration movement and across other movements as well, because we know that this isn’t something that’s just going to impact immigrants, it’s going to impact all of us.

Kanya Bennett
That’s exactly right, Karen. We appreciate all of that work and we want to talk some more in this episode about how we bring more people into the fold and how we get folks to realize that even if they are not an immigrant or part of an immigrant community, that we are all impacted by the harms that are coming with the executive orders and other actions in this space.

So Sakira, let me turn to you and talk a little bit about diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. So like immigration, this issue, these principles were a target and a target that was named early on by this administration and all those sort of standing up and propping up this president. It seems like this administration is not going to stop until they’ve destroyed diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in every sector, whether it’s government, nonprofits, private industry, they’re coming for it.

So I want to ask you, Sakira, at the Southern Poverty Law Center, what do you think the administration is really trying to accomplish here? And how can we effectively communicate that these diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives are essential for equitable opportunities for everybody, and that the harms presented when you roll them back harm the majority of Americans?

Sakira Cook
It’s such an important question because I think it’s at the heart of what we’re seeing from this administration, right? First, I think we have to take a step back and define what we mean when we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Too often this phrase of these terms get reduced to a handful of initiatives or programs, whether in corporate settings or universities or government agencies. And while those efforts are important and they matter, I think it’s important for us to expand our understanding of what diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility really means. In the end, these aren’t just policies or programs or special offices or initiatives. They’re values. And they’re values that are rooted in, I think a simple idea, and it’s an idea that both Nadia and Karen touched on, which is that everyone in America deserves access to opportunity, deserves a fair shot at living out their lives and having their basic needs met in every aspect, right?

Talent is everywhere in this country, but often that opportunity hasn’t always been felt by everyone. Diversity, equity and inclusion is about making sure that the country and the economy work for everyone, no matter your race, your gender, your identity, or your background. I think the vision of an inclusive America is what drove the passage of landmark civil rights laws, right? It’s the Civil Rights Act of 1964, right? This law broke down barriers to opportunity and it prohibited discrimination and employment and education and public life. While these laws were passed to really address systemic exclusion of Black Americans first, they also paved the way for Latino Americans, Asian Americans, indigenous communities, LGBTQ plus Americans, people with disabilities, women, and many, many others. And I think that’s important.

Many of these groups were often locked out of what we term sometimes the American dream. Locked out of access and opportunity, not because they didn’t merit the access or the opportunity, but because of the ways in which our society was structured around keeping a very powerful few, whether they had money, wealth, as the primary thing or they were male and or they were white, the dominant society that opportunity was sort of reserved for. I think it’s really critical that we are very clear that these attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility aren’t happening in a vacuum. They’re part of a broader effort by right- wing extremists also accelerated and emboldened under this administration to chip away at anti- discrimination protections in the courts and to gut the impact that those protections have had. That’s the long game. That’s what they’re shooting for. It’s really to undermine whether in DC or in state capitals across the country ending these initiatives or ending these programs are about rolling back anti- discrimination protections that are for everyone, making sure that piece by piece they’re unrecognizable. And that is an America, an America where diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility,, those values and then the anti- discrimination protections, the civil rights laws that were born out of those values, out of that intent, are no longer available to everyone, is an America where opportunity is reserved for the few. It’s an America where barriers to opportunity, barriers to economic promise of equity and equality and justice for all are only felt by the few and not felt by the majority of America. And that’s a step backwards.

That’s taking us back to a time that we fought to get out of, to a time where progress was made, where we reversed the original sin in this country of racism and segregation through the enslavement of Africans, through the sort of relegation of native communities in this country that we pushed against, that we pushed against that idea to make what’s espoused in our constitution in those founding documents, the promise of equality and justice for all a reality. That’s what these civil rights laws and anti- discrimination protections do for us. And that’s why diversity, equity and inclusion, as values that undergird those, but also affirmative initiatives, affirmative programs to help implement those anti- discrimination protections are so important.

And that’s why they’re trying to undo them. Because as we see the country as changing, we see the changing demographics of immigrants in our country coming into the country and becoming integrated into the fabric of our society. We see the growth of that population threatening those who have long enjoyed control over the systems, the economic systems of power and the political systems of power. And what this administration is trying to do is centralize that power. To test the bounds of the power of the president and to centralize that power so that they can maintain control over the economic and political futures of all of us. And that is something everyone has to be concerned about and has to fight against.

Kanya Bennett
Absolutely, Sakira. And I want to go to this point you made about the administration really trying to secure an America for the few. And Nadia, let me go back to you because I mean really I think you as mayor of St. Louis Park there in Minnesota, defy this place where the administration would like us to go. So let’s talk about your city a little bit. We’ve talked about diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. We’ve talked about immigration. I did a little bit of home-work on your town because you’re at the helm. I think a lot of people may assume that it’s a town that is populated by a substantial number of immigrants. I don’t think that that’s necessarily the case. People may suspect it to be a highly populated place of Black people. I don’t think that’s the case.

So talk to us about how your community is experiencing these policies or others like the federal funding freeze, the firing of federal workers, like I mentioned, diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, immigration. How is your community reacting and what is your community’s most urgent need right now in response to this administration?

Nadia Mohamed
I’m coming from a first ring suburb that is predominantly more White Americans. Although I will say the past 20 years, the demographic has been changing in the city. You’ll have more folks of color and more immigrant populations coming into the suburbs because they want to experience their version of Keeping Up with the Joneses, right? That’s the beauty of the sub-urbs. There’s certain things that are happening this time around with this administration that didn’t happen last time, right? Because there were guardrails last time via Congress, via Senate, via Supreme Court to make sure that things weren’t to this extent. But I feel that there was four years of planning that we didn’t necessarily plan as hard as they did to dismantle some of these key things. So what we’re seeing today is what came out of four years of vengeance basically.

And so when this administration comes, they have done their homework, they’ve done their re-search, now they’re trying to discombobulate us, they’re trying to throw everything under the sun at us so that we’re distracted, so that we’re reactionary so that we’re not organized. And so what we’re seeing this time around again is with these funding freezes, they’re trying to attack the core of what we’re trying to do, the core of the services that we provide. And so, one of the immediate things that came out after the funding freeze was as a city, we have housing authority that provides housing vouchers. So think of section eight housing, more deeply affordable homes that otherwise people would not be able to afford living in our city. That comes from HUD. And so when that funding freeze happened, my staff looked at me in the eye and said, ” May we have funding for the month of February? We don’t know anything after that.”

Now we’re fortunate enough, including my very own attorney general, Keith Ellison, brother Keith, who sued to a Kingdom con and with other attorney generals to put a pause on these funding phrases. So again, even in the state of Minnesota, we have amazing leadership and amazing leaders in place and guardrails to make sure that it does not come dripping over to us and that we are fighting not only for the rights of residents that are impacted by all of our residents. I think those are the things I’m thinking about. And as we’re talking about immediate needs, we’re talking about how do we educate people, as Sakira and Karen were saying, how do we educate people about their rights? And what happened in Chicago is a prime example of let-ting people know that they have rights.

The other day, the Czar, I don’t even know his name, I don’t care to know his name. The border Czar went on live TV and he said, ” We’re not doing as much deportation because all these people know their rights.” If your sole job depends on people not knowing their rights, you are in the wrong field my guy. That’s what we’re talking about is how do we really activate people to be organizers? Because one thing about us is yes, we might have slept after President Obama was elected, right? People were like, racism is over. We’re done. And we became complicit in the system, but we were organizers way before Trump, we will be organizers way after Trump. And so that’s one of the things I’m thinking about as I’m thinking about my community. And then I think one nuance part that I wanted to add was to what extent should I be waving the red flag in front of the bull?

One of the things that I am very, very passionate about is protecting people who don’t have the necessary protection. So as mayor, if I’m in front of this administration and I’m saying all these things about undocumented folks or putting undocumented folks at the center of all of the things that I’m doing, am I then putting the red target on their back? So where is that right balance of not, again, waving the red flag in front of the administration and making sure we stand on our values? So one thing that we have been doing is instead of going upwards with saying our values and whatnot, we’re going directly to residents, right? We’re doing town halls, we’re backing our policies up, we’re making sure we have the right funding. One thing is going to be true, especially in the state of Minnesota. It is going to be real expensive to live in our values. We’re going to lose funding for a lot of the things that we’re doing, and if we care about that value, we’re going to put our money where our mouth is. And so we’re going to have to fund it as a state, as a city rather than getting it from the federal government.

Kanya Bennett
Thank you, Nadia for that. There’s so much I want to react to. There are lots of good points made in that response.

Karen, Nadia talked about sort of not wanting to put a target on certain constituencies and named the undocumented population specifically. So Karen, what do you think is the right balance in how we tackle that issue? And let me also ask you about this criticism that has been against not just immigrant groups, but I think all advocacy organizations that are doing this work to advance civil rights and social justice in this moment.

There’s this argument that’s being offered that suggests that we are out of step with real Ameri-ca. The things that we’re asking for and fighting for here in Washington do not represent most of the folks outside of the Beltway, outside of Washington D. C. If you could talk a little bit about that as well, that would be great. So yes, how do we strike this balance, wanting to the work, but not wanting to target vulnerable already marginalized communities, such as the undocumented community? How do we ensure that we are actually representing the interests and the issues affecting people, real people in the real world?

Karen Fierro Ruiz
This is not the first administration where we’ve seen mass deportations happen. I grew up during the Obama terms when people were literally being picked off of buses, you were getting sentenced to deportation for trying to request credit if you were undocumented. The circumstances were very, very vulnerable for a lot of our communities. I’m undocumented, my entire family’s undocumented, and so it was a very hard time to figure out what are the resources available to me as a young person who at the time I was in high school, I was trying to figure out, well, what are the next steps for me? I’m a good student, I want to continue on. But at that time, I wasn’t really sure exactly what my options were. And also my parents were working as undocumented folks in the country as well, and so I wasn’t really sure we had gone through a few incidences of my parents were unemployed because their employers just didn’t want to cover the expenses of them as workers after incidents and things like that.

And so, one thing that I realized as a young person looking for these resources and looking for these answers was that I needed other people to help me through, and I needed a community. And the only way that I could get a community is by being 100% honest about the situation that I was in at that time. We’re seeing hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth say the same thing. ” I’m undocumented and I’m unafraid.” That was literally how United We Dream was founded and grew up through these times. And so I’ll say as an undocumented community, one thing that we know very strongly to be true is that the power is in our stories, the community organizing that we do, it’s trying to find communities within each other. And I think that’s something that is still very true now in this administration is we have an entire population of undocumented youth that don’t qualify for DACA and have been closed out of other programs like TPS and special juvenile visas that exists out there. These young people have graduated high school, they’re now college age, and they don’t have any type of solution, they don’t have any type of next pathways to go to.

One of the things that we’ve been really working to is making sure that we become that organizing hub for many of these young people that are coming of age during this Trump administration. This is not first Trump. This probably won’t be the last Trump that we face in our generation. What I’ve seen personally over the years is just a maturity that has grown in our movement. Back when we were during the Obama times, we didn’t have things like sanctuary cities. We didn’t have safe zones. We were able to work really hard throughout the Trump administration to organize within state and local municipalities to show them this is how you protect your community and your neighbors. It’s by establishing these safe zones. It’s by establishing these legal funds so that undocumented folks can at least look at what their options are at. There’s a lot of power in just being a part of an organized community, and I think that’s definitely some-thing that we’re seeing right now. I don’t know if y’all have singing, but the mass rallies that have happened in places like LA and Texas, Chicago that are just people coming up and being like, ” Hey, I’m tired of this. I feel my community personally attacked.”

I think right now we’re at a time where our community is ready for it, and our organizing com-munity has matured enough to be ready to welcome them into these spaces. That’s definitely something that we’re going to be focusing on throughout this administration is how do we make sure that the people who are ready to be a part of this movement have a place to go. Through United We Dream, we have relaunched our Here to Stay program, which is a program for both allies and directly impacted folks to come and be part of the movement as we go. But there are organizations, there are youth group, there are organized bodies literally everywhere across the US because we’ve been doing this work for a very long time. And so that’s why you see things like mass deportations not be as successful as these people thought that they would be. It’s be-cause our people have been organized and they’ve been ready and they know what their rights are in this country, whether they’re a citizen or not. We’re ready. And as we like to say, we’re here to stay in every way.

Kanya Bennett
Absolutely. Karen, and thank you for sharing your story. Sakira. I want to unpack some of what Karen just shared this piece about storytelling. I want you to talk about the importance of that tool. I want you to talk about some of the stories that need to be told. And I also want to ask you, as you’re offering some feedback on the importance of storytelling, I want to ask you about economic justice.

And this question I raised of Karen, this disconnect that our organizations are not reflecting the interests of the people. Talk to us about how economic justice is a civil rights issue. It’s tied re-ally, economic success is tied really so deeply to social justice and civil rights. And if we have systemic racism and discriminatory policies, as you noted when you talked about the diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility principles, all these are just going to keep marginalized communities and cycles of poverty. Are we doing civil rights work that is reflective of these economic interests. And are we telling the stories that need to be told with respect to the intersection of these issues?

Sakira Cook
I mentioned the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1964 by Lyndon B. John-son, right? And when he passed that bill, he spoke at Howard University and he declared, ” Freedom is not enough. We seek not only freedom, but opportunity.” He framed this as the next more profound stage in the battle for civil rights. Even before his untimely death, Dr. Martin Luther King was talking about economic justice as the central unifying theme amongst all communities, poor White people and poor Black people. The intersectionality of our identities and our experiences tied to our lack of economic opportunity in this country. Whatever back-ground, whatever race, whatever experience that we had, that there was a common theme amongst that. And it was equality, justice, and opportunity for everyone.

And so of course, economic opportunity and mobility has always been a core value of the Civil rights movement. It’s a core principle that many of the civil rights laws were born out of. Again, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act to 1964 was all about providing ladders of opportunity and employment, especially in the federal government and how the federal government contracted with outside businesses because they knew at the time that African Americans, but also women and others were being blocked out of access to these ladders of economic opportunity, whether it’s education or even housing, financial services. It has expanded over time and through progress that we’ve made in advancing civil and human rights and advancing anti- dis-crimination protections in every facet of American life.

So at the SPLC, we’re called the Southern Poverty Law Center for a reason, right? Especially an organization that is based in the deep south where there is entrenched poverty across deep south in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Those are the states we work in where we see the reality of a lack of economic opportunity and a lack of economic investment for communities in our states, not just Black communities, but folks in rural communities across the state. It’s no coincidence, I think that the most forceful attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are happening in key areas that have always been ladders of economic opportunity. First, education with the attacks on” affirmative action”, in the workplace, but also in access to government contracts and grants and loans. These sectors have always served as the vital pathways and gateways to economic mobility for everyone.

Again, not just Black people. And I keep wanting to say that for a reason because the phrase DEIA, and they are using DEIA for a reason. And that’s why I keep intentionally saying diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, to be synonymous with Black. Because they know and recognize the extremists, understand that bias and racism is ingrained. It’s as American as apple pie, as people say. Not only in the system’s instructions, but also in the consciousness of people, unfortunately. Unconscious bias and conscious bias. And so to unpack that for individuals to think that these programs are set aside just for one community is a way to scapegoat that com-munity and to actually undermine everyone’s rights. They’re like, ” You don’t even know that they’re stealing from you,” because they have sold you a bill of goods to suggest that these things are just for one set of individuals, when in fact they are not. When we know that the largest beneficiary of many programs, affirmative action programs in the workplace, or even in somewhat education have been White women. It hasn’t actually been Black people. And that’s not to say that that’s a problem. That’s actually a good thing. Women were locked out, Black women, White women, women were locked out of economic pathways of opportunity.

So the point is that the goal was to expand opportunity for everyone, especially for those who have often been scapegoated and marginalized in our society, which tended to be Black people, but also other communities as well. So when you lift one boat, you lift the boats of everyone else. And that’s really what has happened as more and more people, Black, Brown, people with disabilities, veterans, the elderly, women, everyone gets access to opportunity and become the majority of society that diminishes the control that the wealthy have on us. I think it’s important for us to start to show the through lines, not only between what people think as core civil rights protections, the anti- discrimination laws, but also the way that our policies with respect to how wealth generation in this country happens.

Tax policy, for example, is a civil rights issue. We know that. Some people said, ” Oh, I voted for Trump because he was going to do well by the budget,” but that’s because people capitalize on the fact that people didn’t understand how our economy works. And how the tax system in America actually works. They didn’t realize that the same person they thought would take us out of the deficit was the person that put us in the deficit that the tax cuts that were given to billionaires and millionaires under the first administration caused the inflation that we’re experiencing today. It caused the deficit to be increased by trillions of dollars, and we’re setting our-selves up for another wave of those cuts that will not benefit anyone, but the rich. So yes, economic opportunity and mobility and access to ladders of economic opportunity and mobility are civil rights issues, paying attention to the budget, I think the mayor has talked about this, right? How having our values be reflected in our investments, how this country invests in its people through the federal government primarily is a civil rights issue. It’s a moral issue. Budgets are moral documents. And when they don’t reflect the values of equality, justice, opportunity, even of support for those who are living at the margins, we have to question whether or not we have a society that is rooted in humanity or a society that is for, again, the rich, powerful and the few, which tends to be White males in this country. And I think that is really what we have to con-tend with moving forward.

So we believe, again, it’s important, and I think majority of Americans, even though some of them who might’ve voted for this president, believe that everyone deserves a chance. Everyone deserves a fair shot. And when you actually explain diversity or say the worst diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, people resoundingly say, ” Oh yeah, of course. Of course.” Across political ideology, across backgrounds, across experience, people absolutely understand that. And so why does storytelling matter? If we understand this, if we understand what’s at stake for all of us when it comes to economic opportunity and mobility, everyone, especially all of us who don’t live in the top 1% of this country, who are the majority, the 99% of us who are living outside of millionaire and billionaire status, when you talk about those individuals telling the stories of the impact of our experience, our lived experience is critical to advancing those rights into securing those rights. Understanding your history first, knowing your rights second, and sharing the experience that you have third are critical to combating what we are seeing from this administration and moving towards taking direct action in many ways are critical to com-bating what’s important for this administration.

I mean, I see a lot of these stories online of people sharing. I voted for X, and I didn’t realize that my vote would impact me in this way. Farmers who got contracts through the government because of the Inflation Reduction Act, many farmers in rural America, some of whom acknowledged that they had voted for the administration. And when the administration said, ” We are no longer implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, and we are pausing on these con-tracts,” these farmers are like, ” I’m going to lose my farm because I entered into an agreement with the federal government.” The shutting down of USAID. People think that’s just money that goes to foreign countries and doesn’t have anything to do with our national security. But they also don’t realize that a large majority of the aid that sent the food that is sent to other countries are from American farmers. The contracts with the federal government help to keep those American farmers alive, help to sustain their livelihoods and their families livelihoods to pro-vide opportunity for them and their families in this country.

The fact that people don’t understand these things, the fact that these stories are not elevated in this way allows those in power to continue to do things at the detriment to us all. So lift up your stories, share them online, share them with your legislature, ensure that your voice is heard. Democracy isn’t a one- time, enter the voting box, and I’m done. Democracy is an ongoing living practice. It’s a living, breathing, engaging practice of storytelling, of engaging with your members of Congress and your state and local elected officials, of using your voice and the power of the people to make the change that we all want to see. And I’m sorry that was a really long answer. This is a combination.

Kanya Bennett
No. It was a important answer. A very important answer, Sakira. I really could talk to the three of you all day. There is so much going on right now, and it’s so important to be in community, talking through these issues, talking through mobilization, talking through how we show up, how we stand up to what we are experiencing, what we are facing. But I promised you all, I would not keep you here all day. So I do want to circle and have each of you offer a call to action or commitment to accountability.

So Sakira, I mean, you really gave us a lot to do in that last response, but is there anything else you want to say to folks who may have voters remorse? They thought they were voting for one thing, and now, I mean not even a month into the administration are feeling like, what in the world have I gotten myself into? My interests are not being reflected. What do you say to those folks, Sakira?

Sakira Cook
When I looked at the election results, right? And this administration is saying, ” We have a mandate. We have a mandate from the people to do all of the harm that we are doing.” And the people are realizing, actually, that’s not the mandate I gave you, even those who voted for them. And this election was close. Anyone who suggests that it was a landslide is actually not looking at the numbers.

And so what I would suggest is that those individuals who are having buyers remorse, who are realizing that they’re actual interests are not aligned with the actions of this administration, they might have thought the interests were aligned because they were told certain things, but now in reality and in practice, those things are not actually happening. I would say that yes, you have legitimate grievances, right? If you are concerned about abuse or if you’re concerned about a lack of opportunity if you’re concerned about not being able to pay your rent, not being able to pay your mortgage, not being able to provide your family with access to education or access to wealth generation in some particular way, that is something that the majority of Americans across racial, ethnic, religious, political ideology all agree on. We all can agree that we believe that our society should work for the betterment of the majority and not the minority or the few I would say.

And so it’s really important for us to be real about who the villain is. Name the villain. The villain is not fighting amongst the have- nots. The villain is the haves. And the reality is that’s who our focus should be. And I bring this up because if we want to mobilize people, if we want them to recognize that they may have voted against their own interests, we have to meet them where they are. We have to acknowledge their lived experience and what they feel as harm, but have to expand their knowledge of what the solution might be. We have to speak to them in terms that they can understand and tell a different story. One that is fundamentally true.

We have to make it clear that their struggles aren’t the result of someone else getting a fair shot. But it’s because we have a system and a structure that favors billionaires and millionaires and corporations and not favors the American people, and that those that you elect into power are supposed to work on your behalf, not on behalf of the interests of a few. Our fight is with that. Our fight is with the values of ensuring economic opportunity and mobility for everyone, which means America needs a raise. We all should be saying America needs a raise. Every person in America needs a raise. Every individual, every working class individual, which is the majority of us, we all want the same things. We need a raise.

America needs to ensure that those who have worked for our country, veterans are always sup-ported. America needs to ensure that the elderly are always supported and have access to Medicare, Medicaid, have access to Social Security for generations, and that generations that come behind them will have access to them. And to ensure that the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the anti- discrimination protections that undergird those values are borne out in every facet of American light. That no one, regardless of race, their background, et cetera, is discriminated against it. That everyone has a fair shot, that everyone’s talents will be recognized and will be supported in every aspect of American life. Because when we all work together, when we all stand together, when we build a movement that is inclusive, and this is the hall-mark of the civil rights movement, it was a very diverse and inclusive movement.

When we build a movement that is inclusive and that features everyone’s lived experience and takes stock of that, but has a shared common interest and aligns that shared common interest, then we absolutely can win. And we are facing, and I don’t want to be alarmist, but I want to be real. We are facing the erosion of our democracy. And what I mean by that, you will no longer have a federal government that was set up to intervene on your behalf when your rights have been violated by a state or a local authority. You won’t have that. Instead, you will have a fed-eral government that will weaponize the law to their own interest in service of themselves. If each American amongst us, if the 99% of us, who again, all pretty much are working day to day to meet our basic needs and to have a life where we all feel like we can thrive, if that group aligns itself towards that common interest, then the answer becomes very clear. Those who have more should pay more and those who have less should pay less. And that means paying into our system differently. And that means the outcomes and the investments from our system look different as well. And that’s I think what we can tell people and offer people.

Voting is just one piece, but engaging, as Mayor Nadia said, running for office in your local community at the federal level, actually coming out to vote for those who didn’t vote, but we have to give them a vision. We have to give them something to vote for, and that’s our job, I think, is something to tell them, this is what we believe. Too much time is spent on what they’re doing actually. What do we believe? What can we all rally around? So I think that’s the next work for our movement is to give a vision of America that we all can buy into. Even those who often don’t see themselves or who often vote against their interests, give them something to vote for instead of something to vote against.

Kanya Bennett
All right, Karen, you talked about United We dream, its efforts to organize, to mobilize. We are here to stay. Karen, how do we get other people into that mission? How do we get folks who may not realize that immigration policy impacts all of us? We all need to be in this fight to ensure that we have safe and healthy communities, reflective of all populations.

Karen Fierro Ruiz
I mean, I think you said it best. Immigration enforcement impacts all of us. The policies that Trump and Elon Musk are moving through are going to be impacting every one of us. It’s impacting already safety in our schools, safety in our hospitals, safety in our churches. They’re coming after every place that they feel is a sensitive place where immigrants would be at One thing. I encourage for folks who are directly impacted, who are undocumented to look for their community, whether it’s locally or with United We Dream, I think right now the biggest thing that we need to do is maintain hope. There’s still a lot of joy in our communities despite these attacks, despite everything that’s been happening in just the last month, there’s still a lot of joy. And I think at this time, my parents always remind me that no matter what happens, we still have each other. And I think that’s definitely something that I sit on whenever I’m thinking about the work that we’re doing.

So definitely leaning into the hope, leaning into the resources that are out there. If folks are interested in United We Dream, you can get that information by texting here to stay to the number 78757, and that’ll just bring you all the way into the organizing mechanisms of United We Dream. Another thing, and Sakira, I think you did a really great job at breaking it down. This is about millionaires just taking it all. The majority of Americans are not millionaires. The majority of Americans do support legal pathways for immigrants. One thing that we can all do as allies and as folks who are directly impacted is making sure that our elected members of Congress and the Senate know that there are hearing from us. Because often when I’m in those offices talking to those staffers or those members of Congress, the one thing that they tell us is, oh, we just don’t hear from your side. And I think that’s something that everybody has the power. You are of a member of Congress. Call them up. Tell them, ” Hey, I am worried about our immigrants. I’m worried about our communities. I need you to vote in ways that are pro- justice,” really, when we talk about it, we don’t need in this moment more people to open the doors for Trump and Elon Musk’s deportation priorities.

I think during the Laken Riley vote, that’s exactly what we saw is we saw both Republicans and Democrats just laying it all out for Trump to take that and to implement the policies that he’s wanting to do. I think as we look into the Congress trying to figure out their budget for this next year, we’re seeing more than$ 200 billion already being allocated or proposed for mass deportations. We’re seeing investments in our military to become just an extension of ICE and CBP within our borders and internally. It frightens me how much people use immigrants as the scapegoat. In a lot of these conversations, I will say. We’re an easy target when it comes to these policies. But one thing that I think we’ve grown and we’ve worked so hard to organize around is to make sure that we have communities that support us. Communities that know you are our neighbor, you are a part of our community, you are a contributing member of the society.

Immigrants make this country run. Immigrants are essential to us having a thriving economy. We need folks who believe in that to be actively voicing that out, talking to their members of Congress, to their elected officials, and also joining Rapid Response Networks, if that’s some-thing that exists around your area, agencies like ICE and CBP can go rogue. It’s just like the po-lice. It’s the people who are in there. Right now during this administration, the people who have gravitated towards becoming ICE officers and CBP officers are not necessarily people who believe in the humanity of immigrants.

And so we definitely need to have an eye on them. We need to be recording them whenever they come into our communities and be prepared to make sure that we are part of the line of defense against these mass deportations and this part of history that honestly, I didn’t think we would repeat again. I would say definitely lean into the hope we’ve gotten past these types of moments in history before I know that we can do it again. I just want to make sure that we’re all in this and that we’re all speaking up for those of us who may not have the opportunity or the liberty to do so.

Kanya Bennett
Nadia, Mayor Nadia, you represent the 99%. What is your charge to your constituents? Constituents all across America? How can they hold the federal government accountable?

Nadia Mohamed
So both Karen and Sakira’s said it so beautifully honestly. I’m so happy to be here and serving on this panel with them. I got my own tidbits from them, honestly, something to leave with. But as we’re wrapping up, I’m thinking of two quotes, and I’ve said it to my residents before, and I’ll say it again. The first one is by Ms. Coretta Scott King, right? And so she is a civil rights activist in her own right. And so, one of the famous quotes that she said is, ” Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never truly won, and you have to earn it and win it in every generation.” It was true when she said it. It’s true now. Now we can name the problem, as is Sakira was saying, now we can name it. We can see it years from now. There’ll be another Trump, as Karen said, right? So there’s always going to be a fight that we have to fight. It’s sad and it’s a hard pill to swallow, but that’s our responsibility as we’re coming onto this earth. And as part of the minority, is that it is going to be a never ending struggle. And it brings us hope because we know we’re not going to be alone.

And the second quote that I’m thinking about is by a pastor. It’s a poem that he wrote in regarding to the Holocaust and after the Holocaust, right? And it goes, ” First they came for the communist, I didn’t speak out because I’m not a communist. Then they came for the socialist, I didn’t speak out because I’m not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionist, I didn’t speak out because I’m not a trade unionist. And they came for the Jews, I didn’t speak out because I’m not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak for me.” And so that speaks to this idea that has been around for the longest time. Things may not impact you immediately, but is going to come around to you. Injustice for one is an injustice for all. The things that I do say to my White allies and to my White residents is that you might not be immediately impacted, but the economic struggle and the injustices are all interconnected.

And so when our brothers and sisters are struggling and are fighting for that, that means it is going to impact you one way or the other. And so it is our job to make sure that we’re constantly saying it in the loudest way possible, in the quietest way possible, in the best way, most effective way possible, whatever that may look like to you, that this is not right, that this is not fair, that our struggle is a collective struggle. Again, it may not be impacting you immediately, but it will come around. And one day you’ll look around and there will be nobody to speak for you. As I’m thinking about in my local seat, in my local leadership, we are the last line of effective policy. I say that as biased as it sounds, the work that we do will have the most impact on our residents, and so when we’re putting a protective barrier onto our residents, then we’re doing our job. One of the things I would say is figure out what your community needs and how can you provide that?

Sometimes that looks like really going deeper into your community rather than really being confrontational with the federal level, really putting funding together and figuring out creative ways to really address these problems, as Sakira was saying, around voting, and give them a reason to vote, not what to vote for or not against, but that’s what we’re talking about, is giving them reasons and policies that impact them in a positive way rather than what I feel is just fear- mongering and things like that. What can I do? And really focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t do. I think those are things that I’m thinking about as we’re wrapping up today. But again, I am deeply honored to be here with you, Karen, and with you, Sakira. And thank you, Kanya.

Kanya Bennett
Thank you for that, Nadia. Well, that is some wisdom. That is some knowledge, that is some expertise, and those are some calls to action to leave us with today. Appreciate you all so much for joining Pod for the Cause.

Sakira Cook
Thank you.

Nadia Mohamed
Thank you, Kanya.

Karen Fierro Ruiz
Thank you, Kanya. This was great.

Kanya Bennett
As you heard on today’s episode, the fight for civil rights and democracy is more urgent now than ever. Here are three actions you can take, which you can find in our show transcript.

Raise your voice, contact your governor to advocate for inclusive and welcoming school environments that celebrate and affirm all students. Sign the Leadership Conference’s. Petition sup-porting inclusive curriculum in schools. Stay informed, understand the impact of executive orders on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and share of this knowledge with your community. Read the Leadership Conference’s, diversity, equity inclusion and Accessibility, explained fact sheet. And take action, urge Congress to investigate threats to data privacy, and protect sensitive information from misuse. Read the coalition letter to Congress on data privacy, then call or email your representatives to demand action.

Thank you for joining us today on Pod for the Cause, the official podcast of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. For more information, please visit Civilrights.org and to connect with us, hit us up on Instagram and Twitter @ civilrightsorg. You can text us text civil rights, that’s two words, civil rights to 52199, to keep up with our latest updates. Be sure to subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast app and leave a five star review. Thanks to our production team, Shalonda Hunter, Dina Craig, Taylor Nicholas, and Oprah Cunningham, my colleagues at the Leadership Conference. And shout out to Podville Media, our external production crew. And that’s it from me, your host, Kanya Bennett. Until next time, let’s keep fighting for an America as good as its ideals.

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