Dana Black: This administration should lead with love, not hate

Every April, my heart is a little heavier than the rest of the year because this is my mother’s birth month, and I miss her so much. The lessons she taught me continue to sustain me even after 25 years of not having her here with me.

Like most young people, I struggled with low self-esteem and trying to find my way in the world. I would come home from school after another day of teasing about what I looked like (being extra melanated and having the last name Black made me an easy target) and tell her how horrible the kids at school made me feel.

I attended majority-white schools in the 1970s and 1980s, and I would often feel out of place or that I just wasn’t smart enough to fit in. However, she would never allow me to wallow in that feeling and would remind me that nobody was better or worse than me. She would remind me to treat people how I wanted to be treated and let God take care of the rest.

Never have those lessons been more apparent than in these first 100 days of this new administration. As elected officials continue to write legislation designed to dehumanize segments of our society and sign executive orders eliminating DEI initiatives, I’m certain there are young people searching for answers because they are unsure of their worth.

This Republican-led administration will have you believe four-star Gen. Charles Brown Jr., a one-time fighter pilot and only the second Black officer to hold the title of chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy and become a member of the Joint Chiefs, were hired only because of their race and gender. You know, DEI hires. Therefore, they couldn’t possibly be qualified. They were both fired and replaced with white men because, in this administration, only white men are qualified to manage national security.

Then, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a white guy, sends military attack plans through the Signal texting app, where National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, a white guy, mistakenly includes a journalist on one of at least 20 text chains he created, potentially risking the lives of military personnel. Attention to detail, which apparently these two lack, should be a key qualification of those charged with our national security. If the two fired military officers were DEI hires, what would you call Hegseth and Waltz? DAH (dumb-as-heck) hires.

Doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk—while walking alone to dinner where she would break her Ramadan fast with friends—was snatched off the street by six plainclothes officers and sent to a staging center in Alexandria, Louisiana. How terrifying that must have been. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denied that Ozturk is being detained solely because of her views, he did mention an op-ed she wrote that the administration disagreed with. I suppose for Rubio, First Amendment protections apply only to those from Cuba. Too bad Rubio couldn’t treat Ozturk like his family was treated when they, like Ozturk, legally immigrated to the United States in 1956 seeking a better life.

These are the incidents we know about. What about the ones we don’t know about? How many constitutional violations and lives will be destroyed by this incompetent, cruel and functionally unconstitutional administration before we take a stand like U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and his 25-hour act of resistance? Booker was able to prove love and compassion can outlast hate and division.•

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Black is former deputy chairwoman for engagement for the Indiana Democratic Party and a former candidate for the Indiana House. Send comments to [email protected].

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