“That we have not just
revolted is crazy to me.”
Summer Lee, an
African-American lawyer, community organizer and member of the Democratic
Socialists of America profiled in our June cover story, recently won the
Democratic primary for Pennsylvania House District 34 on a resolutely
progressive platform. With no Republican likely to file in this deep blue
district, Lee is almost certainly headed to Harrisburg.
What do you say to those who
claim progressive candidates hurt Democrats’ chances?
I don't think it's true. I
think the people who say that don't necessarily believe in progressive politics
and they project that onto other people.
Politics speaks to everybody
if it’s done correctly. My campaign reached people who voted for Bernie
Sanders, for Hillary Clinton, for Donald Trump. They were enthusiastic about
our message. Everywhere we went, people cared about their kid’s education,
their air and their water. They cared about a living wage.
And maybe sometimes words
might be frightening to them, like, “oh, you're a socialist.” But we didn't do
sensationalism. We were patient, we talked to people about what they care
about. We helped them understand that addressing the things they care about
isn’t a scary thing, it’s not unattainable.
If someone who was considered
a radical black woman can win in a district like this, you can absolutely have
progressive politics anywhere in Pennsylvania.
You told CNN recently
“capitalism works on the back of my community and communities of color and poor
communities across the country.”
I think when you look at the
system, at white supremacy, at what we call a meritocracy and at capitalism,
you’re quickly able to see which communities were always destined to fail or to
be disadvantaged.
People tell us that the things
I fought for in my platform are just pie in the sky, being progressive for
progressive’s sake. That’s not true. When we ask for free education, we’re not
saying that because it sounds nice, we’re saying that because as a young black
woman who grew up in a poor black town, my family was not able to amass
generational wealth because of the history of capitalism, the history of
racism. So when it came time for me to go to college, I was a first- generation
college student. I didn't have family members or anyone who could help me
offset the costs.
Black students are more likely
to shoulder loan debt, which means that we’re more likely to go into the next
generation behind. It doesn’t seem like a fair system.
When you look at other
industrialized countries, you don't see residents making the hard decision
between, am I going to go to the doctor and find out if I just had a heart
attack or am I going to pay my bills or am I going to ignore it? That is
absurd, but that's how we're living in the United States of America.
We have turned our backs on so
many people and I think capitalism has run amuck. I mean, that we’re even
talking about capitalism and it's not just like a “Duh.” When we look at just
outrageous income inequality, the fact that we have not just revolted is crazy
to me.
What are your priorities for
your first year?
Now we're looking to other
races, we want to make sure that we're helping other candidates. We've built a
huge organization that we should be able to mobilize, to tap into, to keep this
people-powered movement powered.
people-powered movement powered.
In Harrisburg, if I had to
focus on something I would say mass incarceration, doing something on
legislation with cash bail and decreasing the prison population. Hand in hand
with that is a funding scheme for education, ending the school-to-prison
pipeline. And for my town’s sake, I’ve been an advocate for environmental
justice and obviously I don’t intend to relent.
If you look at these issues as
separate, you’re missing something. Your politics is incomplete.
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