Pressing Forward: Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil
Graphic by Habib Salami.
OPINION
BY RANN MILLER | Pressing Forward
There’s a saying that actions speak louder than words. However, doing the right thing starts by saying the right thing.
Because while actions are important, speaking truth to power is an important action. It’s advocacy for those whose voices are ignored or silenced. That was the work of the most powerful orators and truth-tellers America has ever seen.
I believe that many of us wish for the ability to inspire change in the hearts of men and society as did folks like Dr. King, Fanny Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker. Politicians likely feel similarly. However, Dr. King, Fanny Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker were truth-tellers. They were so unapologetically, no matter the cost to them personally.
Few politicians and political candidates are this way. Dr. Ala Stanford, sadly, is a current example.
It’s because a politician’s political life depends on satisfying multiple constituencies—specifically, voters and donors. I suspect that Dr. Stanford likely sought to satisfy her donors when she refused to say the word genocide, because her donors disagree with there being a genocide in Gaza.
While there’s no evidence that Dr. Stanford has accepted AIPAC campaign contributions, Drop Site News has reported that Dr. Stanford is benefiting from donations linked to AIPAC-aligned networks.
What does that mean?
It doesn’t mean she’s a direct beneficiary of AIPAC, but it does mean she likely has little desire to alienate would-be or current AIPAC-affiliated donors to her campaign. Saying the Israeli government is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Palestine might just alienate donors and some voters. Her refusal is concerning.
It’s concerning because if elected, Dr. Stanford would be another Black congressional representative connected to AIPAC in one way or another. AIPAC is the top fundraiser for members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and accepting AIPAC money is a business decision by many CBC members to protect their seats, money, and therefore their power.
However, they’ve compromised their prophetic voice as ‘the conscience of Congress.’
It seems that not becoming Cori Bush or Jamaal Bowman matters more than having a prophetic voice.
But Bush and Bowman did what CBC members and Dr. Stanford wouldn’t do: they called the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza genocide. They were right to do so because it is. The word genocide is not a (racial) slur like the N-word.
Dr. Stanford got that wrong. Genocide is a codified term defined as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such”:
“(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Dr. Stanford’s refusal, and the refusal of any Black politician, to say the word genocide with respect to the Palestinians of Gaza, is a refusal to bear witness to a crime against humanity.
They’re in similar company.
When the Civil Rights Congress—whose members included Paul Robeson, Mary Church Terrell, and W.E.B. DuBois—submitted a petition to the U.N. titled We Charge Genocide: The Crime of the Government Against the Negro People; documenting hundreds of lynching cases and other forms of brutality to show a clear pattern of government inaction and complicity, the NAACP chose not to submit its petition, An Appeal to the World, to the UN in 1947 for fear of embarrassing the U.S. on the world stage.
But at the expense of Black folks.
AIPAC isn’t concerned with the politics of Black folks, a people familiar with genocide here in the United States. AIPAC is concerned with the politics of Israel’s government, which is the settler colonial occupation of Palestinian lands, that has resulted in the Palestinian genocide.
If Dr. Stanford will not acknowledge this, it is fair to question her acknowledgment of America’s history of settler colonialism, resulting in the genocide of indigenous and African peoples.
Dr. Stanford shouldn’t be fearful of embarrassing the U.S. on the world stage. Donald Trump has done that plenty, but I digress. She should fear compromising her prophetic witness. Her platform is dedicated to fighting for justice on behalf of Philadelphia’s most vulnerable.
But doing so means publicly acknowledging the taxpayer-funded genocide, which contributes to keeping vulnerable populations vulnerable.
Because political campaigns are about telling the truth, in addition to winning them.
BIO: Rann Miller is a writer, author, and educator. A graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Rann teaches AP United States History, is the author of Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids, and is an opinion columnist, featured in various news outlets exploring the intersections of race, education, politics, culture and history. You can follow on “X” @RealRannMiller, on IG, and TikTok @realrannmiller.
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