By: E. Faye Williams
I ask the 10 Democrats who voted to censure the Hon. Al Green — siding with the enemy instead of challenging the person speaking and taking nearly 2 hours to spew hatefulness and untruths. Rep. Green has served 11 honorable terms in
Congress, and before that he was a great lawyer, judge and president of the NAACP. He has a great record of helping, not hurting, people.
The true warriors are the ones who refused to listen to the man without objection. His ugliness was deliberate. It says a lot about those who quietly
sat by and said or did nothing. It tells us who they are. I like the ones better who showed us their concern. The 250,000-plus people on the Zoom with Roland
Martin did the right thing by showing our disdain for what we knew Trump would say. Our being on Zoom while Trump was spewing his lies, would’ve upped the ratings on the meanness he was spewing. We objected in advance because we knew what he always says.
The objectors are the true warriors who rightfully objected to what was being said. Warriors fight back in whatever way they can when they or their people are attacked. What Trump did was deliberately abusive. What the 10 Democrats did was divisive,
and they must know what they did hurt others who were doing the right thing. I’ve heard their excuses, and wonder what they did when Marjorie Taylor Greene or Joe Wilson of South Carolina broke “decorum.” After what Rep. Green did, he “apologized” because some things are so wrong that you must speak out. Silence to what Trump was saying was giving their consent. Rep. Green, Rep. Jasmine Crockett and the members who held up their signs or walked out showed how they rightly felt. Suddenly with their objections, freedom of speech suddenly went out the window!
Everyday somebody stands up for what is right without regard to what others think or are too afraid or too uncaring to do anything — so the ugliness goes
on. Being OK with lies is not OK. Violating one’s right to disagree with lies is not OK. Those who spoke out verbally or actively should be honored. What others should have spoken out against were the disrespectful things Trump was saying about
President Zelenskyy, and the admiring things Trump was saying about Russia’s president when he said “Anybody would have done the same thing” referring
to Putin continuing to bomb Ukraine.
I believe in the warriors who are still fighting back against wrong. As Martin Luther King III said at this year’s march in Selma, that it does not feel like freedom exists. He reminded us that nonviolence is the key. I’m proud of the crowds that paid tribute to Bloody Sunday as a civil rights ongoing protest. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words still ring out regarding what he said we should remember years ago: “Let freedom ring” as when freedom rings it will bring about freedom for all. “Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy for all. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”
We’re still not satisfied with injustices and we won’t be “until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” When we let freedom ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state, we will be able to speed up that
day when all of God’s children . . . will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last, Free at last, Thank God All Mighty, We are free at last.”
We’re not there yet, and until we are, may God continue to raise up warriors willing and able to fight!
Dr. E. Faye Williams is president of The Dick Gregory Society
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