It is easy to forget that leaders are human beings who have strengths and weaknesses, prejudices and preferences, and both insights and blind spots. They are neither perfect nor all-knowing, but they are accountable to those of us who to pay attention. Even as a school kid, I made it my business to pay attention to the decisions and behaviors of my classroom elected officers. Early on I realized that they were representing me and that the decisions they made on my behalf impacted my daily school life. And so, I was diligent about making my wishes known. Being an introvert, I never sought leadership roles that required constant interaction with others. Instead, I preferred to whisper my concerns, approval or disapproval directly into the ear of the leader. I learned back then just how powerful my whispers were because very few of my peers bothered to provide the leader with any input or feedback; they simply went with the flow. But I realized early on that without input and feedback, leaders are left to their limited understanding, gut feelings, and personal whims on issues that affect others.
So, I am grateful to live in a country where we have a constitutional right to petition our government. Writing, calling, or speaking directly to leaders about issues of concern continues to be my preferred form of activism and advocacy. I’ve experienced the power of a letter or a speech before a city council. In the past few years, writing letters or sending emails have become a major past time because consequential decisions are being made by elected leaders who are ignoring the rule of law and who are ignoring the important principle of a separation of church and state. If people who are paying attention say nothing and do nothing, then our nation will be run by lawless men who behave like an American version of the Taliban.
This week, I wrote several letters to lawmakers. One of them is Congressman Bryon Donalds, a black Republican from Florida who went on television after the most recent school shooting to say it was time to grieve, not to discuss taking any action to prevent more gun violence. He also claims in interviews and on his website that systemic racism may have existed a hundred years ago, but it doesn’t exist today. Here is my slightly edited letter to him:
March 29, 2023
Dear Rep. Bryon Donalds,
First, I want to say that I was once a rare African American Republican because I believe in hard work. I am a grandmother who has a lot of life experience. I eventually changed parties when Republican friends started bringing a new political agenda into our church, claiming that the U.S. was a “Christian” nation, villainizing my University education, asserting that they were “colorblind”, and asserting that abortion was murder. Previously, we had believed like the Jews, that life began with breath like when God breathed into Adam and he then became a “living soul”. We believed that this body is just a temporary tent formed in the womb. We didn’t lament miscarriage as God killing a person. Suddenly, unborn fetuses became babies who needed protection and abortion was murder. It made no sense that a heartbeat determined personhood, especially because a heart can literally be transferred from one person to another. And even today, it makes no less sense to me since embryos can be frozen.
That said, I am writing to you because I saw your pathetic deflection on television, using hollow respect for grieving families to avoid addressing the outrageous everyday problem of gun violence in this country. Personally, I’ve stopped going to the movies because of it. I’ve stopped going to concerts and large gatherings. I look for the quickest escape route when I go to the grocery store, the nail salon, or a restaurant. I eye people suspiciously in case they might be the next mass shooter. When I was working, we had mass shooter trainings on a regular basis. Unfortunately, we loss a student during a mass shooting at a local nightclub. None of us have ever recovered from that trauma because these are daily realities somewhere in the country. We are the only nation in the world that is forcing its population to live in this kind of daily terror. The job of government is to protect its people and you and your colleagues are failing us. The right to bear arms is not a license to threaten the entire population. It can and must be regulated with gun safety training, licenses, and background checks.
You say you joined the Republican Party because you believe in liberty. All I see is a Party that wants to take away liberties like fair access to voting, a woman’s right to choose, the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens to pursue happiness and freedom of speech. Your party is banning books and drag shows and science and history, and sex education. Your Party is stealing personal liberties from anyone who is not white and doesn’t believe a certain brand of Christianity. The only “groomers” I see are in the Republican Party which I now consider the American “Taliban”.
As for systemic racism which you claim no longer exists, I can tell you that you are wrong. It continues to exist. Look at the criminal justice system. I live in a predominately white suburb. Every time my brothers came to visit me, they were stopped and searched by the police. My black and brown students experienced the same thing at the University where I worked to the point that I regularly met with the police department about it. That is systematic racism. As a child, we moved to a predominately white neighborhood and were uninvited from attending the well-resourced white elementary school that had a cafeteria with hot meals, beautiful buildings, and great playground equipment. We were forced to attend the school with other children of color that had no cafeteria (only a Thursday “hotdog” day), bungalows, and a playground absent any fancy equipment. Financing a house took a lot of work. It wasn’t until we were refinancing our house that my white banking friend (who was a bank executive) explained to me that banks routinely require more documentation and look at closer at black applicants. That, sir, is systemic racism. A few years ago, I had a white provost say to me in casual conversation that he could hire a black English professor from Harvard and pay him less because he was black. I had to inform him that that was illegal and he looked genuinely surprised. Ironically, it turned out that this exact thing was happening to my husband for years. That situation was only rectified when his boss retired and a new boss saw the disparity, apologized and then immediately boosted his salary and provided a bonus to help make up for years of underpayment. I inadvertently witnessed a similar situation when I noticed that a Latina employee with a master’s degree and more experience was being paid $10,000 less than a white employee in a similar position who only had a bachelor’s degree and less experience. The Vice President immediately gave that underpaid employee a huge raise and she never knew exactly why. In my years of work experience, home buying, and raising kids in white schools, I have personally witnessed systemic racism in the treatment, education, and compensation of people of color. With each house I sold, I knew enough to remove all traces of our “blackness” when we sold our home so we could get top market value. Like my mother before me, I had to insist that my children were put into college preparatory courses despite their high-test scores and excellent grades. They are all successful college graduates today, but it wasn’t without pushing against a system that was set against their progress.
You really need to reconsider your decision to become a Republican. Perhaps being an independent might be more suitable as your Party seems to offer nothing beneficial to the American people these days.
Sincerely,
Dr. Juanita Hall
Voting citizen of the United States
American descendant of slaves
I believe that most leaders have a desire to serve. As citizens who rely on them to make good decisions on our behalf, we have a responsibility to provide input and constructive feedback. However, our greatest responsibility is to refuse to elect people who covet positions to feed their pathological need for power and fame.