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Is Nancy Pelosi the ‘White Moderate’ MLK Warned Us About?
The Speaker’s recent actions call into question if she’s truly an ally
In his famous 1963 writing, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. offered this:
“First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been greatly disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
Since the gavel was returned to her hands in the 2018 midterm “blue tsunami” election, countless memes and stories have been written celebrating the “power” and “strategic wizardry” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Yet, in the many, many months following the Democrats’ historic win and America’s first electoral denunciation of Donald Trump, we have seen little action taken against the president. Sure, there are six House committee investigations underway, a 448-page memo produced on Trump’s many impeachable offenses by former special counsel Robert Mueller, and subpoenas galore that have been issued and subsequently ignored by this White House.
But what has been missing and deeply needed is the full weight and power of the gavel. Instead, what we have become accustomed to is a lot of finger waving, exasperated press conferences, and “strongly worded statements” that go absolutely nowhere.
Where Speaker Pelosi has seen fit to direct her ire and consternation, however, is towards the newly elected and incredibly popular four Freshman women of color in Congress, affectionately known as the “The Squad,” comprised of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. These women represent the most diverse Congress ever to exist in the United States. They also represent in many ways the shifting national demographics that have drawn the seething resentment of the patriarchs and matriarchs of White supremacy like Tucker “Klansman” Carlson and Laura “I only see race” Ingraham. We know what the radical right thinks about women of…
