By Dayvon Love
Fundamentally, politics is an arena for the contestation of power and resources. And the American political arena is not the open and inclusive, deliberative democratic system that we are told it is.Historically, White people have been over represented in occupying seats of political and civic power, which has put Black people in a position primarily of resistance to the oppressive nature of the White supremacist power arrangement in American civil society. Demographic and political shifts in Maryland and around the country have resulted in the ascension of Black people to positions of power. It is my observation that the set of dynamics mentioned previously cause there to be clear differences in how White people have occupied positions of power, as opposed to how Black people occupy those same positions.
The late Democratic state senator of Maryland, Thomas V. “Mike” Miller, was the longest serving state senate president in the history of the United States, serving in that role from 1987 to 2018. He was notorious for presiding over the senate with an iron fist. There are numerous examples that I could cite as evidence of this that would be too long to include in this article, but one easy example is the fact that he had the name of the Maryland state senate building named after him, while he was serving as senate president. I can’t imagine a Black elected official being able to have the government building that they preside over named after them while they are in office without being characterized as a dictator.
Donald Trump, particularly during his second term, has wielded power in the federal government in ways that if a Black person did would be characterized by Republicans as acting as a dictator. This dynamic has resulted in Black people being overly concerned with being seen as wielding power in a dictatorial fashion. We saw this during the Obama administration when the former president allowed Republicans to block his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, instead of aggressively wielding power in the way that MAGA has in order to blunt the Republican Party from seizing control of the court.
Generally, White people are so used to being in power and feel so entitled to it, that when Black people occupy positions of power and wield it aggressively where White people must be beholden to them, they experience this as oppressive. Even when Black people nominally wield their power in the face of White people pushing back against them, White people generally experience this as oppression. This was demonstrated on the Maryland State House floor on Feb. 3 when Republican Delegate Lauren Arikan (R-District 7) took issue with how Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk was presiding over the discussion regarding legislation that would curtail local law enforcement’s collaboration with ICE. Arikan taking issue and raising concerns about how the discussion was being presided over isn’t necessarily the problem. The issue is that the delegate said that the body was being run like “a Third World dictatorship.” This statement is astounding given the fact that, in my opinion, the Speaker has been overly gracious and accommodating of the minority party.
Just the mere fact of the Speaker asserting her authority to preside over the House floor proceedings as she sees fit being characterized as dictatorial demonstrates deep-seated anxieties that White folks generally have about Black people wielding their power in ways that White folks have done historically.
The reference to “Third World dictatorships” is particularly problematic because it is racialized rhetoric that implies that developing nations, which are largely non-White, are inherently prone to propping up oppressive regimes. This omits the role that the U.S. has played in destabilizing governments that don’t acquiesce to American foreign policy interests, including the installation of puppet regimes, political assassinations and economic strangulation. I want to be clear that I am not calling Delegate Arikan racist, which is where many people would jump to in reading what I have laid out here. What I am saying is that her use of that phrase contributes to dominant narratives in this society that demonize the legitimacy of Black people wielding power.
I am not suggesting that Black people who occupy these positions should do so autocratically. Politics is about contesting for power. This means that when we do occupy positions of power, we must not prioritize benevolence to our political opponents because they will never do that for us. When they are in power they prioritize their own interests, and they set and enforce the rules (sometimes break their own rules) in a way that favors them.
We need to do the same. Otherwise, we will be appealing to the moral conscience of a people who will never sacrifice their core interests in the name of fairness. And our communities suffer when we are not forceful in our contestation for power.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.