Securing Asian American legal agency is a prerequisite to diasporic politics – mobilizing voters solves racialized plutocracy

***Can also be a TvA centered around social security/guaranteeing certain workplace protections and securities

The boldest vision of Asian American politics is that our true arrival, our accomplishment, is defined not by rivalry in a stratified labor market, not by a contest over racial supremacy, but by our ability to build collective power – power with, not power over. This is the core teaching of Black feminism, the theoretical core of Black Lives Matter. To paraphrase the legendary Barbara Smith, Black feminism is simply about creating a place on this globe that is fit for human life. We cannot do that alone. We can only do that together.

In conceptualizing and actualizing power with, one could substitute the word power with an array of elements that shape power, and thus, our lives. Resources. Agency. Identity. Dignity. Struggle. Love. We can build a society in which all of these things live in an ecosystem of deep interdependence.

We know that COVID-19 is causing deep pain in the lives of so many Americans and people around the world. Losing loved ones and not being able to touch them, to hold them, is an unfathomable pain. Because of longstanding racial inequality, that pain is not borne equally. Black Americans are dying at three times the rate of white Americans. In San Francisco, among COVID cases, Asian Americans are four times likelier to die than the overall population. Because of the brutal legacy of colonialism, COVID-19 is 3.5 times more likely to affect American Indians and Alaska Natives. In the words of Indigenous researcher Abigail Echo-Hawk, the ongoing system of Native American oppression has created “a perfect environment to kill us in a pandemic.” Native Hawai’ians and Pacific Islanders are seeing infection rates up to five times that of white people in Los Angeles County alone, and disproportionately in states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, where their case and death rates are higher than any other race and ethnicity.

We should all have what we need to stay safe and healthy regardless of race, zip code, gender, income, age, and ability. The pandemic is a reminder that we’re not there yet. In a society where Black lives matter less, life itself matters less. In a society where politicians use racism to win elections, democracy remains out of reach. We all want to take care of and protect the health and wellbeing of our families and loved ones, whether we are Black or White, Asian or Latino, Indigenous or immigrant, Jewish or Christian or Muslim. We understand our health and wellbeing are tied to one another. Everyday Americans have been pulling together to pull through this crisis, and that’s what’s saving lives. But we need an accountable government to support our families and workers at scale. We need protections and hazard pay for workers, removal of the profit motive from our healthcare system, and policies and practices that replace punitive systems with ones that repair and care for all of us. That is the next “new normal” that Americans should unite to create, and that racism has prevented for far too long. Building the care-centered society we all deserve requires us to fight racism together.

Right now, Trump and his white nationalist, Christian nationalist, armed militia, and corporate base are testing American democracy. This is the product of racism, which created an opening for an authoritarian to exploit anti-Black sentiment, fear of terrorism, and fear of immigration as a driver of rapidly changing racial demographics that many white people believe will displace them from the center of U.S. political and cultural life. Trump walked through that opening and into power, an act that drew the most extreme racist elements of American society out from underground and into the mainstream. They’ve become, once again, part of legitimate U.S. politics for the first time in over 50 years, because they feel represented by one of our two major parties. They feel legitimated by a president who has also appointed ideological white nationalists to positions of power in the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, and the White House staff. Having been welcomed back into the mainstream of American political life, far right extremists and white nationalists, including armed white nationalist militias, won’t give up their newfound influence without a fight. The toothpaste, as the saying goes, is out of the tube, and the fight must continue.

Many people feel afraid right now, but strength comes from unity, not division. We need local and state government leaders to fight racism through concrete policies that prioritize compassion, wellness, and the needs of people first, before profit for the wealthiest Americans. The reality is that by the time a hate crime or state violence happens, the harm has been done. We need to get to the root cause, which is prejudice and racism, the belief that in order for some of us to prosper, others have to suffer. Power over. This is a society-wide problem that we urgently need to fix. Moving public resources from punishment to prevention requires a strong and inclusive public education system that teaches tolerance as a first principle of citizenship.

We, the majority of Americans, say, “Enough.” Black-led movements demanding change have inspired more and more Americans to demand real democracy, where every life actually matters. Because when Black lives don’t matter, we get out of control policing, cuts to the social safety net, an economy that puts profit over people – a society in which all life matters less. Indigenous movements have inspired us to demand an end to the ravaging of the earth that has caused so much harm and suffering — year after year of category 5 hurricanes, smoke-filled skies that allow no one to breathe free, sacrifice zones that leave people who, because of corporate greed have no healthcare or safety net, to die unjust deaths. Asian Americans, Muslims, Pacific Islanders, and immigrants have demanded an end to scapegoating and hate violence that in fact puts everyone in danger, because it solves none of our real problems. Jews who have endured centuries of persecution standing up to say “no” — not only to antisemitism, but also to the deadly white nationalism that it fuels. Displaced and abandoned rural workers and families are fed up with a system that exploits them politically, while ignoring the things that they really need — sustainable jobs, infrastructure, thriving schools and neighborhoods, a say over the decisions that govern their lives.

That’s why so many movement forces are pulling out all the stops to make sure all of us, everyday people, exercise the basic right that democracies are supposed to safeguard: the right to vote on who gets to govern. We do this with deep love for our families, for our children and grandparents, for our neighbors, and for our future. We don’t all have to agree. But we — the vast majority of American people who believe deeply in democracy — must act to defend and expand it by casting our ballots, defending the results, and claiming our agency.