- In the next four years of the Biden-Harris administration
I want to see the rules that have been rigged
against black communities, be unrigged
and replaced with new rules that bring us all forward.
Their slogan was "Build Back Better."
And I think they should be building back boulder
using the unprecedented level of power
that was advanced to them
through the participation of black communities
to finally make sure that black communities get something
out of the political process.
It's long overdue.
(gentle music)
My name is Alicia Garza
and I am the principal at the Black Futures Lab
and the Black to the Future Action Fund.
I'm also a co-creator of Black Lives Matter Global Network.
In this last year, I really invested in my organization.
And as a result, we were one of many organizations
that help to make sure that black communities
are powerful in politics
so that we can be powerful in the rest of our lives.
And I think we saw in this last year that black voters
in particular wielded their power
and lent *their power in such a way
that it changed the political landscape of this country.
So that's something I'm also really proud of,
in terms of what we invested in and what we focused on
even though things around us were chaotic.
What I hope continues is a sense that things are urgent.
You know, a lot of people have not
and don't talk about politics
because it makes them uncomfortable.
A lot of us are taught that politics is a personal
and a private conversation.
But what I think we saw in 2020,
was that it's not personal and private.
It impacts all of us
and we have to bring politics to the public square.
And in doing so, then we are able to finally
address and transform the rigged rules
that have been organizing our lives for far too long.
I hope we take that sense of civic engagement,
of activation, of being present and being aware
of what our government is doing and how it's doing it.
I hope we take that sense of awareness
and keep sustaining it
so that we are an active part of changing the rules
that have been rigged against us for a long time.
I think it's important
that there are more conversations happening
about equity, about inclusion, about diversity.
But I actually think
that the conversation we need to be having
as a queer person of color,
is a conversation about justice and accountability.
And once we are talking about justice and accountability
then I wanna also talk about how we reconstruct the society.
From our workplaces, to our homes, to our neighborhoods.
In the workplace in particular,
sometimes just having the conversation makes us feel better
about the inequities that exist in our organizations
and in our companies.
And actually it's not rocket science (laughs).
What we have to do in our companies,
what we have to do in our organizations
is we have to redistribute power.
And in redistributing power,
what we are ultimately saying is,
that we are courageous enough
to reshape ourselves in such a way
where nobody gets left behind.
And we're at the center of all of it,
is making sure that everyone gets to live with dignity,
everyone gets to be in a workplace
that is fair, and that is just
and that everybody has a chance to succeed.
But the only way that we do that
in real time is to actually do it in real time.
And we can talk about it until the cows come home.
We can talk about it until we're blue in the face,
but if we're not taking concrete actions to change
who's leading and from what value standpoint,
if we're not taking concrete actions to make sure that
certain people aren't concentrated in certain types of jobs,
if we're not taking concrete action,
to make sure that our impact outside of our companies
is the same as the impact that we're having
inside of our companies,
then really a lot of what we're doing is just talking.
We've said from the very beginning
that black lives mattering means all black lives
and we've gotten slammed for it for the last decade.
I can't tell you how many conversations I have with people
that's like, "Why do we have to include the gay agenda
and the black agenda?"
And I'm like, "Because black people are gay too."
Black people are trans black people are queer.
I mean, we are everything.
And so it's important for us
as we're building this movement
and as we're moving it forward,
to make sure that nobody gets left behind.
And not only that, but to make sure that the issues
of the kind of diversity and complexity of our communities
are front and center.
Trans issues, issues of trans women of color
and black trans women in particular, are not side issues.
You know, it's interesting,
right now there is a whole culture war
that is raging on trans bodies.
Whether it be around access to healthcare,
access to it affordable and quality housing
or even just being able to go to the bathroom.
And we should not make any mistake that,
these culture wars really mirror the ones that I grew up in
in the '80s and '90s
that were all about morality and sexuality.
And what they did was they created fertile soil
for regressive policies
that left people out and left people behind.
And so, as we are advancing this movement
we have to be very, very committed
to ensuring not only that we're paying attention
to our own culture war,
our own ability to change what people think is common sense.
But also to make sure that the policies
that are being advanced in this moment
are policies that improve and transform
the lives of black trans women,
of trans communities, of communities, et cetera.
There's no such thing as a black issue
or gay issue or a trans issue,
that actually all of these issues are impacting all of us.
And they may be impacting us differently
but they're impacting us nonetheless.
The lack of access to democracy is impacting all of us
when anybody doesn't have access
to the things that they need.
And so I always like to say,
what's good for black communities
is good for the rest of America.
And if we really dive into that, what we're saying is,
access to affordable and quality healthcare
is good for everybody in this country.
Access to affordable and quality housing
is good for everybody in this country.
Unrigging rules that have been rigged against us
for a very long time,
such as the rules that organize our criminal system,
undoing those rigged rules is good for everybody.
It brings us justice.
It brings us accountability
and it gives us an opportunity to reconstruct ourselves
in the type of society that we all deserve.