16 Jul 2019 Ayanna Pressley’s Racial Radicalism Repudiated

Representative Ayanna Pressley pulled back the curtain at the recent Netroots Nation conference to show that the organizing principles of the left appear similar to the organizing principles of the alt-right and white nationalists.

In pitching her adversarial approach in dealing with her own caucus colleagues on Capitol Hill, Pressley demanded that members of minority groups that comprise the left’s coalition speak with one voice. No dissention is allowed.

She even made the case for casting out those who refuse to march in lockstep and speak in the left’s “voice.” Racial authenticity seemed to be come from compliance with radical doctrine.

At the Netroots Nation gathering, Pressley declared:

I don’t want to bring a chair to an old table. This is the time to shake the table. This is the time to redefine that table. Because if you’re going to come to this table, all of you who have aspirations of running for office. If you’re not prepared to come to that table and represent that voice, don’t come, because we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice. If you’re worried about being marginalized and stereotyped, please don’t even show up because we need you to represent that voice.

This necessity for groupthink certainly seems similar to the chants and manifestos that are condemned when they are attributed to white nationalists and the anti-liberty/anti-conservative alt-right. It’s time for Pressley and those who support her to be held to that same standard. People need to be “Raising the Barr” on politicians like Pressley who push an agenda rooted in racial authenticity. We need to hold them to the same standard that people like Roseanne Barr have been held to when they have made offensive comments and promoted divisive ideals.

Project 21 members denounced Pressley’s comments at the Netroots Nation conference, calling it bigotry and even comparing it to the leadership styles of dictators such as Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Un.

On the Fox News Channel program “The Ingraham Angle,” Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper said about Pressley’s comments:

That’s racism, and that’s bigotry.

That’s saying that – just because you’re black or gay or whatever you might be – you have a duty to act a certain way, to be a certain way. That’s bigotry.

Citing the threat to individuality and free thought, Project 21 member Melanie Collette added:

Representative Ayanna Pressley’s suggestion that there is a singular brown or black voice with which we should all speak reeks of the ignorance and racism she claims to fight.

For anyone who doesn’t see all things through the prism of color, the challenge is to understand how she rationalizes this level of hypocrisy. Most infuriating is the danger that this thinking presents to free-thinkers and to freedom itself.

Suggesting Pressley’s agenda paves a path toward dictatorship, Project 21 member Christopher Arps said:

There is nothing wrong with individuals organizing like-minded individuals to shape public policy. That’s what makes our country unique among the nations of the world. What is not unique, and what is all too common in the world, is when free speech and thought are stifled and critics of despotic regimes are jailed or killed.

Ayanna Pressley’s racist call at the Netroots conference is organizing by skin color and ethnicity – not like minds. If you disagree with her or her ilk then you are ridiculed, called out of your name and ostracized.

I personally don’t see a lot of difference between Pressley’s tactics and the tactics of dictators like Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Un.