Still, I have to ask: where the hell is the rest of the Democratic Party?
Why are they not all down there making a bigger fuss about all this?
I support Collier and agree that she is being courageous in the face of authoritarianism, but I don’t like the idea of what’s happening to her being flipped into another story about “resistance.”
I’m not usually the type to quote former Biden Press Secretary turned cable news host Jen Psaki, but she’s right when she says: “Just to be clear, Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier is not holding some kind of sit-in protest. She is literally locked in the State Capitol against her will.”
Yes, Collier has described her actions as a form of protest, but ultimately, this is about an elected official being held against her will because she won’t agree to police surveillance once she leaves.
This is the unlawful detainment of a Black woman legislator, or to follow Collier’s lead on bluntness, a kidnapping by the state of Texas at the urging of its racist, power-hungry GOP bloc that will do anything for its master, Donald J. Trump, who most recently complained about how awful museums make slavery look.
She is courageous, but when you consider how some of the other folks that signed up for police surveillance have already been threatened with arrest, how much of a choice was she left with?
Many of us have been asking how bad is this all going to get under a second Trump term?
Here is one of the clearest answers yet.
I don’t think of Nicole Collier and want to muse about sacrifice in the name of patriotism, but how Black women continue to fight harder for “democracy” than others with fewer resources and support.
That includes Black men in elected office with more power, i.e., Senator Booker or House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who recently was rightfully lampooned for telling a reporter that his plan to tackle one of Trump’s administration’s latest fascist plots – the taking over of Washington, D.C., – with a strong-worded letter.
Gavin Newsom is garnering so much praise for his tweeting in the style of Trump, but his demo will not be dealing with the worst of what’s planned first, and it’s evident in how Collier is being treated.
As a native Texan, I’m used to watching Democrats talk about how important “democracy” is, yet do little to go deep down South and fight the tyrants who have been giving Trump a roadmap on how to wrap power around him for years.
I want to be clear that I support Nicole Collier and all that she’s doing, but let us not romanticize her kidnapping by fascists.
She is being held against her will but choosing to fight back.
And if they are to glean anything from her, it should be this attitude she has articulated to the press: “They say take that high road. That high road has crumbled. We’re on a dirt road and we’re gonna meet them and get down and dirty. My fellow Democrats are ready to fight with the grit that is necessary to challenge the oppressor.”
I hope her fellow Democrats are truly ready because it can’t just be the Nicole Colliers of America doing the hardest work.
Michael Arceneaux is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book, I Finally Bought Some Jordans, was published last March.
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