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Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Maybe you were dancing in the streets this weekend, over the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They are thanking the people who brought them to the dance.

Joe Biden: Especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African American community stood up again for me. You've always had my back and I’ll have yours.

Kamala Harris: Black women, Asian, white, Latina, native American women, who throughout our nation's history have paved the way for this moment tonight, women who fought and sacrificed so much for equality and Liberty and justice for all, including the Black women who are often too often overlooked, but so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy.

[applause]

Brian: It's easy now to forget last February when Biden had come in fourth and fifth in Iowa and New Hampshire, but then Congressman Jim Clyburn said this about Biden before the primary in South Carolina.

Congressman Jim Clyburn: I know Joe, we know Joe but most importantly, Joe knows us.

Brian: Clyburn's emotional endorsement helped propel Biden to be the overwhelming choice of African-American voters in Democratic Primaries, a key to his nomination. With me now, Rashad Robinson, President of the influential racial justice organization, Color of Change.

Rashad Robinson has an article on the route now called We won the fight to be heard, but we still have to fight to win racial justice. Job one making sure voter suppression doesn't turn into ballot suppression. Hi, Rashad? Welcome back to WNYC.

Rashad Robinson: It's always good to be with you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian: Before we get to the work ahead, the first line of your article is, "Today we should celebrate." Can you put into words some of what you're celebrating?

Rashad: I'm celebrating a number of things. One I'm celebrating that we were able to turn out to the polls in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of unprecedented voter suppression and send a powerful message to someone who started his campaign demonizing and attacking people of color, Mexicans and immigrants, spent years traveling the country with a racist birther conspiracy theory about President Obama and so many other things that I could go on with the list and that would be the whole show.

That was powerful, but it wasn't just that. The other thing that I'm celebrating is all of the ways in which while this wasn't a win for racial justice, racial justice helped to propel this win. What I mean by that is that we had really saw a bottoming out of enthusiasm until the uprisings of the summer. Voter registration numbers had teetered off.

We started to see a real uptick, huge uptick during the uprisings of this summer of people registering to vote or new voter registration. We saw those people then go to the polls. We saw real changes in prosecutor offices around the country from big wins in LA, in Chicago, in Orlando and throughout Georgia actually prosecutor races, including taking out the prosecutor that that botched the Ahmaud Arbery case.

In so many ways, we-- Or tried to botch the Ahmaud Aubrey case. In so many ways, racial justice, I think, was such a motivating factor. What I'm also celebrating, I think is the growth and the power and the new found electoral power of our modern racial justice movements of the Black Lives Matter Movements, of organizations like mine and others, which have not only translated protests and an energy on the streets, to the ballot box.

Brian: Now, you wrote that we can celebrate the force of our numbers, how Black people showed up, but at the level of the Presidency and I hear you when you talk about the many elections that the racial justice movement this year had an impact on, but there's a lot of post-election analysis that refers to, with respect to the Presidency, how it might've been about 90, 10 for Biden, but Trump actually did a few points better than he did among Black voters in 2016, according to the Exit polls. What do you make of that?

Rashad: I think it was unprecedented turnout and what I make of that is also the fact that someone who's in office for four years, if you look at how George W. Bush did his second time around, he actually increased his share as well.

The Presidency has the ability to hand out things, to do things for communities that build alliances. The fact that Donald Trump had the most powerful platform for four years and couldn't increase his numbers, by any large number, while he also at the same time outraged and amplified a whole new generation of voters.

If you look at the young Black voter turnout numbers, you look at those percentages, what you'll see is Trump getting 2%, 3% of that portion in some places. Yes, the President always will have, the incumbent always has the power of incumbency, the power to reach in and peel off aspects of the community but the fact after four years that Donald Trump couldn't make his case given some of the real challenges that Joe Biden had.

The '94 Crime Bill, he was not President Obama, he was not an exciting candidate that was able to inspire and attract. Donald Trump was a celebrity, is a celebrity in so many ways and that's not to give him any credit, it's just to state a fact.

To that extent, the fact that Trump couldn't, I think also speaks not to the power of a Biden campaign, but the power of grassroots movements to continue to stay engaged, to continue to educate people on the ground, to continue to point to people what's at stake, to fight the unprecedented amount of misinformation and disinformation that traveled across social media platforms.

It was amplified through the algorithms of these platforms that we were fighting every single day, that we're telling all sorts of lies about Donald Trump's record, that we're creating all sorts of incentive for people just to give up and stay home.

This is what I mean by the power of the infrastructure to fight against something that is incredibly hard to fight against because what we should know, is that incumbent Presidents, when they run for reelection, by and large win.

Donald Trump is an outlier in terms of losing. He lost because all of the tools that were at his disposal from a justice department, from the misinformation, from all the voter suppression, all of those things were not enough to overcome the energy, the fight and the passion of a movement.

Brian: In fact, I saw a Venn diagram online. I don't know if you ran into this, that shows the circles of all the Presidents who ever lost the popular vote, all the Presidents who only got to serve one-term and all the Presidents who were impeached or resigned and only one fit into all three circles and that was Donald Trump.

Rashad: It's quite incredible. It shouldn't surprise none of us the way he's responding now. Moving from voter suppression to ballot suppression trying to cancel Black votes. Using a racial bullhorn to talk about cities like Detroit and Philadelphia to have led the most corrupt administration in history, but to be out here talking about corruption in cities.

This should be no surprise because that Venn diagram, I think clearly where Donald Trump is such a unique figure and I think that that's also important for all of us because we're used to Presidents going away. it almost makes us forget about the Bush years.

From my perspective, you look at the statement from George Bush and you almost have to forget that George Bush passed tax policies that made people poor and then criminalized poverty, he engaged overseas in ways that force people to migrate and then criminalized migration.

There were deep structural and challenging things that came out the Bush years, but you look at his statement and you almost forget the ways in which you long for those days we don't, but it recognizes that.

What I say is that we should be vigilant about the fact that Donald Trump is not going away. Donald Trump will use his platform and all sorts of ways. He may sell foreign-- He may sell our secrets to foreign actors. He's certainly going to try to monetize everything he knows in ways that are going to be very different than other Presidents in the past.

Of course his family will still be on the stage and whether it's him running again or members of his family, he will be on the stage. We may have defeated Donald Trump, but we have not defeated Trumpism and we have not defeated the Trump family and all of the ways in which they will continue to grift off of our democracy, off of our labor and off of our country.

Brian: Listeners with Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change. Let's open the phones in this segment for Black voters, no matter who you voted for, but we know that's 90-ish percent for Biden and Harris.

What do you want to ask Rashad Robinson? What do you want to say about the battle against ballot suppression that now follows the one against voter suppression? What do you want to ask of Joe Biden?

Seriously, what do you want to ask of Joe Biden now that you helped propel him to the nomination and the Presidency? What would your top racial justice policy item be for the incoming administration? Name one. Would you put one at the top of the list or a couple, if you want to do it that way? 646-435-7280. For Black voters, 646-435-7280.

The bottom-line question, what do you want to ask of Joe Biden now that you help propel him to the nomination and the Presidency? What would your top one or two racial justice policy items be for the incoming administration? Or what do you want to say to or ask Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

I want to go back to that line I read at the beginning Rashad, from your article on the route where you said, "We won the fight to be heard, but we still have to fight to win racial justice." Then you wrote, "Job one, making sure voter suppression doesn't turn into ballot suppression."

The ballot suppression effort is largely being played out in court and that's different than an election in this case judges not a majority of voters will decide. I'm curious what role you see for the people in this fight?

Rashad: Yes, it's being played out partially in the courts, but it's also being played out in the court of public opinion where a lot of the conversations, a lot of the both sides conversation and mainstream media has it. The last polling I saw yesterday, had a stat like 46% of Americans that believe that there was like voter fraud at a massive level in this election.

Part of, I think, what we have to do is make sure that we don't focus too much energy on this and we do move forward with the election, but make no mistake the challenge here that we're facing and Color of Change has had to face this for years is that they're already watching and Georgia as they are going to be attempting to criminalize Black folks who work to register voters, Black people who worked and worked at the ballot box.

They're looking and they're digging in and they're trying to create a stop and frisk of voting where you go out and you look for something and hope that you find something and even when you don't find something, you make everyone's life miserable and you create a whole challenge on the system as a whole. It doesn't make our voting any safer and the fact of the matter is it's a solution in search of a problem.

That's what we are seeing in so many ways and part of what we don't want to have happen is that these narrowly tailored cases that are being driven by media, that are being driven by the right wing information bubbles, create a cloud over this win, a cloud over the mandate for change for a path forward.

Part of our efforts around ballot suppression is that the tremendous effort around from Black people turning out this election cannot be undermined and we should not let it be undermined by these efforts and by undermining, it makes it so that the election, that was just one doesn't actually lead to the type of change because we spend years fighting about ballots, fighting about an election where people in the middle of a pandemic took all sorts of risks to make their voices heard.

Brian: Debbie in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Rashad Robinson. Hi Debbie.

Debbie: Hi, Mr. Lehrer and Mr. Robinson and Brian, thank you so much for what you do. I just want to point out something, I wish Mr. Robinson wouldn't comment on and I think a lot of your voters don't know.

I am not a graduate of a historically Black university, but I am just amazed at the efforts of the Black sororities and fraternities to get the Black vote out and to go to places in the rural areas where Black people did not have easy access to voting whether early or at the polls and these sororities and fraternities, organized themselves to get that vote out. I wish Mr. Robinson would comment.

Brian: Rashad.

Rashad: I was on many calls with folks from the Divine Nine, which are the grouping of fraternities and sororities and many of the deltas and AKA's showed up to our event, our voting while Black events throughout the South.

I know they partnered with groups on the ground, like the New Georgia project which was founded by Stacy Abrams. These groups ran their own programs, but just as importantly, they really charged their members with connecting and engaging with organizations like mine and others.

This is not new though and this is what I hope. I think it was definitely powered, I think there was a new level of energy given Vice-President-elect Harris being on the ticket but I remember back in 2016 when we were doing a whole lot of [unintelligible 00:16:50] for our district attorney work in cities around the country, working to elect reform-minded DA's.

We would have tables of folks counting votes and The Deltas would be at one table and the AKA's would be at another table and they would be competing against about who would get out the most texts. I am so inspired about all of the ways in which culture and Black joy was centered in our efforts to turn out the vote.

Black joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of aspiration and folks leverage their contacts, their communities, their networks, and all sorts of powerful ways. The Black church, Black organizations, Black LGBT organizations. There were so many groups on the ground, those in labor that engaged, but engaged both around the issues, but brought culture to bear as well. I think that that was powerful and important and the fraternities and sororities were absolutely part of that.

Brian: That's right. And for those of you who don't know if you ever see in print Kamala Harris, AKA, it doesn't mean also known as it's Alpha Kappa Alpha. Nicola in Harlem. You're on WNYC with Rashad Robinson. Hi Nicola?

Nicola: Hi, Brian and Rashad. Thank you for the work that you and your organization do. I support you guys monthly. I feel like the battle should be continuing. We should be moving it on to Georgia. You have to get Georgia and I'm hoping that you and Stacey Abrams and all the other grassroots organizations in Georgia are ready to take this battle to Georgia.

Brian: Rashad [crosstalk]. Whops. I'm sorry Nicola, I thought you were done. You were saying, take this battle to Georgia because otherwise-- Go ahead and you can finish that thought.

Nicola: Because otherwise Biden doesn't have much of a hope in the House, without taking some part of the Senate, a big part of the Senate.

Brian: Gridlock like Obama had without taking the Senate, Rashad.

Rashad: First of all, thank you for the support. For folks who support us, know that it allows us to do our work. It powers everything that we do and allows us to stay independent. As the only national Black civil rights organization that doesn't take corporate contributions, corporate financial support, it really does, so thank you for that.

What I will say first and foremost is we have been over the weekend, no break spending time, developing plans, looking at our work in Georgia, really focused on both unleashing our members' energy, but also the work that we're going to have to do to fight the misinformation and disinformation on the social media platforms.

We've already been in touch with the social media platforms and around some of the misinformation and disinformation bubbling up. It's much harder in a runoff election because there's less national attention, all focused and so it's a lot easier for folks to sow doubt about election day, where you haven't been told about the election day all-year long and people can have all sorts of information about how you can vote and not vote.

We're going to have to spend a lot of time and resources really focused on that. As well as getting out the boat and more importantly continuing to expand the base. That is why folks like Stacey Abrams and The New Georgia Project, our friends at Black Voters Matter, The Working Families Party, there's so many groups that will be focused and we're going to work together, we're going to work to expand the base, we're going to do the work to win this thing. You're absolutely right.

I believe it was Harry Truman that was the last new President that came into office without the Senate of their party. When Barack Obama was first elected he did have the Senate which was why he could get healthcare in place. Otherwise, it would have been impossible.

Joe Biden while also being unique in taking out sitting a President is unique in terms of going into office right now not uncertain about whether or not he has the Senate. We need to make that a certainty and that is the work ahead and I'm so glad you brought it up.

I hope folks who really believe it want change, who don't just want a static, who don't just want less of worrying about Donald Trump turning off the post office but actually want to ensure that workers have the things that they need that we actually put the resources energy and passion behind getting out the vote and making that election work for us.

Brian: Let me ask you about one particular issue. Obviously police violence was the trigger for this year's movement, but the way it's gone has also had political costs. The looting and anti-police violence though by a tiny percentage, gave Trump and other Republicans an effective talking point to raise fears and let me play another clip of Congressman Clyburn. We played the one earlier from February that gave Biden such a boost in the primaries.

Here's Cliburn yesterday on CNN worrying about the slogan or the call to defund the police and remembering a conversation he had about that with the late John Lewis this year just before the icon died.

Congressman Clyburn: John and I sat on the house floor and talked about that defund the police slogan. Both of us concluded that it had the possibilities of doing the Black Lives Matter movement and current movements across the country what Burn Baby Burn did to Ross back in 1960. We lost that movement over that slogan.

Brian: What's your reaction to Congressman Cliburn?

Rashad: First of all, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Congressman Clyburn and of course the late Congressman Lewis. Worked with both of them on a number of issues. I want to say a couple of things. I think he was relating a lot of that in that clip to Jamie Harrison who won and who ran an inspired campaign in South Carolina but fell short.

When Stacey Abrams ran her inspired campaign two years ago in Georgia, the focus was on continuing to build on the tremendous amount of people who were registered, continuing to build on that effort. The right will always find something to push against.

The candidates who were hit with attacks around defund the movement in many places were having uphill battles already. I do think that we can get into messaging conversation, but I do think that the more we can deliver, the more we can fight back against that.

I am old enough to remember people calling President Obama on the right a socialist. None of us today would probably think about the Obama times as socialism by any stretch of the imagination especially socialists.

To the extent that we're always, every election cycle going to be faced with deep levels of tack and unless we build the type of infrastructure the type of digital campaigning that is flexible enough to be at the doors, to be online, to be in conversation that can engage folks and move people past that, that is important.

I also think that we also have to recognize what does it mean to lose a Senate race in South Carolina that we were contending for? I think we have to think about this as a step towards winning down the line the same way Stacey Abrams saw her loss which in some ways I believe was a stolen election.

It was much closer and Georgia is a much different state than South Carolina but they continue to engage. They continue to register voters and kept moving the ball forward, the same way years ago the new Virginia majority project.

My friend Tram down there worked over the years to build that infrastructure. Now Virginia has become a majority blue state that we almost don't even question as a swing state. We are going to have to continue to work on the ground.

I fundamentally believe that while we have definitely powered racial justice to be a majoritarian issue, I guess what I mean is black folks are not the majority but racial justice is a majoritarian initiative. It has the ability to inspire, engage.

If you think about this summer, the most people thought we could do in terms of protest and engagement was clapping out of our windows at 7:00 PM and uplifting investigative journalism about COVID. It was racial justice that did all the things I said earlier got people registered, got people aligned got people excited about voting even though the candidate wasn't exciting.

I think that we need to take all of that and absolutely, we may need to have conversations about words and phrases but I do want to say that for everything that racial justice has done for this movement and now that it's a majoritarian issue, we need to be focusing on making it a governing majority.

It's not just a majoritarian issue in terms of where people are at on the issue because like guns, we can have things like people being with us but not actually being able to pass the legislation. We need to work to build the power around those ideas, to protect the people that support us and hold the people that don't accountable.

That's the work we're trying to do and that is why as an organization has grown to 7.2 million members strong, we are focused everyday on that and also winning the narrative fight. I absolutely respect those in elected office but they have a job to do and we out in the movement in the field have a job to do.

Our job to do is to continue to push so we can make what they believe is possible, we can move the ball on whatever they believe is possible so we can get as much as possible for our people.

Brian: We're almost out of time in the segment but I want to get in one more color Sandy and Nassau County who has some things that she would like the Biden administration to do. Sandy, you're on WNYC with Rashad Robinson. Hi there?

Sandy: Hello Brian and Rashad. Thank you for taking my call. I think as a African-American voter who did vote for Biden, one of the first things I would love to see is the development of a reparations commission whose first order of business is to one, release any and all slavery archives that really begin the process of healing and closure for African-Americans.

Secondly, of course I would love to see sweeping criminal justice reform that ends the use of private prisons and also creates jurisdiction over local county sheriffs because there's a lot going on there, and of course the legalization of marijuana. Thank you.

Brian: Sandy, that's very specific. Thank you. Rashad one minute left. What would you put at the top of your list specific policy items?

Rashad: Absolutely, we have to deal with the COVID crisis and the ways in which it's ripped across Black communities from an economic perspective and get money and resources in people's hands work to save Black businesses, Latino businesses that have been decimated.

Absolutely, policing and criminal justice reform is at the top of our list and we've already been in touch with the transition team about that and about the things that I believe are real solutions versus fake solutions.

Really, wanting to be clear about things holding the line between bipartisan commissions that absolutely are where good ideas go to die rather than actual policies and practices that move us forward. Then we have to deal with a broken election system.

This was not a win for democracy. Don't tell me it's a win for democracy when people have to wait on five-hour lines. When people at every single turn are blocked from casting their vote. I think democracy reform, economic justice, criminal justice and absolutely, we have to have a reparations framework to all of this to make sure that we recognize that we don't want charitable solutions to structural problems.

We want justice and justice actually requires us to deal with the harms that were caused and build from there not simply try to mitigate, not simply try to fix Black and Brown communities but work to fix the structures that stand in our way. That is part of the task at hand and those are part of the things that we're going to hold the Biden campaign to $14 billion was spent in this election and no policies were passed.

The path forward is to actually do the work now to get those policies passed so we can make the elections matter. For us, getting involved in elections are not about giving politicians jobs no matter how much we like them. They are about making people's lives better and that's the work ahead.

Brian: Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change. Thank you so much.

Rashad: Thanks for having me.

Brian: Brian Lehrer WNYC stay with us more to come.

 

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