Edward Daniels, on day one of DC protests in front of the White House
The year is 2020 and the month is June.
I am supposed to be celebrating my niece’s graduation. I am supposed to be standing on 17th Street, catching rainbow-colored beads at the Capital Pride parade and dancing with friends as we celebrate Pride Month. I am supposed to be planning my company’s 15th anniversary and my 40th birthday party. I am supposed to be re-charging my hoverboard and searching for a new go-go-gadget jet pack because, after all, it is 2020, yes? Instead, this June of 2020, I am protesting for civil rights in the middle of a pandemic after the death of yet another unarmed black person at the hands of police.
I have spent the last several weeks trying to process all that is happening, why it is happening, and how I can be part of a solution that finally sticks. I planned to write an op-ed though my thoughts turned into an essay.
There are moments in life that I will never forget.
I will never forget election night of 2008. Among friends at a watch party in DC, I stared at the television with the excitement of a child on Christmas Eve. Suddenly: “Breaking news. CBS projects that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois will be the next president of the United States.” The room erupted. I cried. I then proceeded to (almost) ugly cry when, on the phone with my Dad, he said: “I never thought I’d live to see this day.” To this very day, I still get teary-eyed when I think of that phone call.
I will never forget the parade of cars and of people who took to U Street as I made my way home. The high-fives. The hugs with random people through my Jeep window. The honking. The tears of joy. The love.
The love was so intense. The love spread globally over the next several weeks as over one million people prepared to flock to DC to witness the inauguration of our first black president. Again, I will never forget the hugs with complete strangers and tears of joy, day in and day out, leading up to that beautiful January day. I will never forget sitting in a coffee shop at 3am as busloads of out-of-towners arrived with luggage in tow and no place to stay, stating that they just wanted to be here in DC, no matter what, to witness history in the making.
I will never forget walking all over town on Inauguration Day, broadcasting live remote interviews to my hometown’s AM radio station. National Guard officers were laughing, smiling, and proudly showcasing their vehicles, which aren’t often seen on the streets of DC. Each officer seemed to be just as excited as a child on Christmas morning as they stationed themselves for crowd control on the front line of history. I will never forget buying Obama Hot Sauce. Yes, Obama Hot Sauce was a thing.
I will never forget election night of 2012. It was déjà vu. “Breaking news, CNN projects that Barack Obama will be re-elected President of the United States.” We were off to the White House gates, again. More hugs with strangers and photos of people hanging from the trees in Lafayette Square Park.
I will never forget the summer of 2015, while working on my first feature film in Richmond, VA, I woke up in my hotel room to the news that the marriage equality bill had passed, making same-sex marriage legal across the land. Later that night, I cried when I saw friends sharing posts of the White House illuminated in the colors of the rainbow. Love and LGBTQ equality was in the air and shining brightly from our nation’s capital.
Maya Angelou said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I will never forget, during the Obama years, feeling a great sense of hope, of change, of optimism that we, the people, were finally inching closer and closer to that promised land of togetherness, of empathy, of equality.
Cue 2020, late May.
On day one of protests in Washington, DC, I could sit idle no longer. I stepped away from the television, the laptop screen, the phone, all filled with news of George Floyd’s death, and turned my thoughts into action. It was time to get moving.
Alongside hundreds of others, I made my way to the grounds of the White House, catching a tear in my eye as I walked past the National Museum of African American History and Culture which, if you have had the honor of visiting, you’d find a stunning presentation of the history of the African-American.
The White House is a place where people used to gather, so happy and so proud. Even locals would make the trek to this touristy place to grab a quick selfie at the gates of the North Lawn and Lafayette Square Park. The scene on this late day in May was quite different. The tone was incredibly sad. Anger filled the air as we stood barricades away from riot police and secret service, most who presented an unnerving smirk as they glared towards the crowd. I had so many thoughts as, for the very first time in my life, I raised my black fist to the sky in solidarity with a movement that began so many years ago. I also had to laugh at myself because I did not know if I was making the fist correctly. Was my thumb in the right place? Did it matter which hand I used?
My thoughts on systems.
There is an ancient proverb which says that “a fish rots from the head.” The origins of this proverb are still unknown, but its meaning is that a system’s failure is often traced back to the top of that system. I am an entrepreneur who decided to run for office after the election of 2016, because I felt and still feel the need to create positive change in this world. After two years serving as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, I have learned so much about systems, how they should work, how they do work, and how and why they fail.
What I have found is that, biologically speaking (for those who believe in science), a fish not only rots from the head, it rots from within. We are all affected by abstract systems such as government, religion, and law enforcement, to name a few. These systems, abstract or physical, fail. Like the rotting fish, failure is not only due to those who oversee the system, but the many players who are a part of and make up the system. These are individuals who should be called out, by name, instead of referred to by the abstract system that they oftentimes hide behind. A lack of accountability and proper oversight of a system allows for bad players to remain in the game, as it were, when their role should be immediately evaluated to determine if they are to remain a player or immediately sidelined. The larger the system, the more likely it is that these bad players will present themselves like a malignant tumor that prevents the system from the betterment of all.
What we are currently witnessing on a global scale in response to racial inequality and justice begins at the very local level. I have found, serving in this very local level of government, that there are many persons in positions of power or are part of a system where they should not be. Many are elected, others are appointed, and some, well, I have not the slightest clue as to how they arrived at where they are. They have the power to create change and are paid well to offer change and sustainable solutions, in the name of public service, but for some reason they choose to avoid or delay the very tasks that they have been hired to carry out.
Accountability, oversight, and who should be doing the job.
Small business owners, myself for example, wear multiple hats. We are the head of payroll, the marketing department, the tech team, the admin support, and so forth. If the owner drops the ball on any given task, the ball simply travels to the owner’s other hand. The ball is still there. The task remains undone. It is the onus of the small business owner to get the work done or they directly suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, the fantastical world of government does not offer the same level of accountability and urgency in completing tasks as one would find ingrained in the work ethic of an entrepreneur.
Those who should be in government, in my opinion, are not those who first come to mind: the poli-sci majors, the lawyers, the legacy kids riding on their parents’ coattails. No, those who should be in government are those who are intuitively driven to get sh*t done, right, the first time, right now, today, not tomorrow, not next week, because they work within a certain degree of urgency that must be met, without excuses.
Who are those people, one may ask? Those would be your professional event planners and race directors who seamlessly coordinate large teams who meet the needs of thousands of event guests on a weekly basis. Those would be your production assistants on a film set who must find thirty-two pieces of star-shaped candies before a 6am shoot atop a remote mountain. Those would be your dedicated PTA parents who, after a long day at the office handling their own workload in addition to the workload of a slacker co-worker, shows up for a late-night meeting, because they care about their child’s education. Those are just a few of the doers who understand that life is too short to delay the simplest of tasks that affect us all.
In a brief two years in my current elected role, I’ve encountered a level of non-accountability and lack of urgency that are prime examples of systemic failures.
For instance, it should not take years of resident complaints regarding a hazardous intersection before DDOT decides that it is time to install a traffic light.
For instance, in a city that is starved for affordable housing options, it should not take a leasing office months to realize that their affordable units remain empty because someone within their leasing office isn’t doing their job properly to get them filled by the residents who desperately need them.
For instance, though I am proud of the bold statement made by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser by having “black lives matter” painted on the street and re-naming that street “Black Lives Matter Plaza” overnight, and I give her every ounce of praise she deserves leading us through these trying times, I still find it quite interesting that thousands of crosswalks and miles of street markings remain unpainted throughout the District and residents are still waiting years for missing signs to “come from the printer” in order to be installed.
For instance, residents should not be forced to spend night after night, for over a year, walking a dark boardwalk because a park director cannot figure out how to instruct his team to replace a light bulb.
For instance, a police officer with a long record of citizen complaints that spans years, should not be in uniform, wearing a badge for which he has sworn to utilize in upholding the law and protecting the public, because a police union has deemed misconduct files closed as said officer moves from one department to the next.
These are systemic failures caused by specific individuals who hide behind an abstract system and get paid lots of money, oftentimes our tax dollars, to not do their job effectively. A lack of accountability and oversight of these critical parts of the system is why they remain in place. Proper accountability and oversight of these critical parts of a system that is not working would force their removal, thereby improving the system.
The system of racism.
As I mentioned earlier, I had a small inside laugh when I put my fist up in solidarity with protesters because, not only did I not know if I was doing it correctly, but I was also thinking of the abundant ignorance that still has us dealing with this in 2020.
I do not often talk about race. I was one of the young, gifted, and black kids who was teased for speaking a certain way. I grew into the teen who was told, for various reasons, by black and white people alike, that I wasn’t black enough. Until recently, I hadn’t experienced any of the often-heard stories that so many other black people have experienced and shared when it comes to racism. Until recently, though I live by the gospel of “Portlandia” and watch it on repeat, I finally watched “The Help” and I thought it was great. I also must thank one of my best friends for suggesting it because she also thinks it odd that I watch “Portlandia” on repeat. I digress. All of this is to say that we beautiful brown beings are just as different as the many shades in which we appear. Ignorance of these differences amongst us is dangerous and deadly.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where black hate and black fear have been ingrained, have been branded like a hot iron upon our psyche. This branding, like that of a good ad campaign, has some of us sold and convinced that all black people are suspects, are perpetrators, are predators, are criminals, are inferior. From wherever this mentality stems, be it from personal experience or learned bias, it must stop. It must stop, period.
What cannot happen is a black woman dying, just days after being pulled over for failing to signal while driving.
What cannot happen is a young black man dying because he was wearing a hoodie in a predominantly white neighborhood.
What cannot happen is a young black man being shot twice in the back as he ran away from police officers in a Wendy’s parking lot.
What cannot happen is an angry white woman frantically dialing 911 to report an “African American man threatening my life” simply because he, while birdwatching, asked that she leash her dog.
On a more personal note, what cannot happen is the DC Metropolitan Police Department poorly training an officer who decides to approach and patronize me, the Commissioner of one of the “12 Coolest Neighborhoods Around the World” (Forbes Magazine, 2018), in my own building’s lobby, making me feel as though I was going to be arrested, though I summoned him to my property to address a late-night noise complaint. The complaint involved a group of drunk white individuals, a dog in tow, out front, yelling and screaming, as they threw mulch back and forth at one another. Though multiple residents placed calls regarding the noise and activity, the officer stated that he “only saw a group of people out enjoying the night with their dog.”
I later received an apology from a First District MPD Lieutenant, who viewed the officer’s body-cam footage, and I was assured that this rookie officer’s inappropriate response would be addressed.
The thing about ignorance.
I loathe blanket statements and find it quite ignorant to label an entire group of people as being all the same. It is pure ignorance, lack of knowledge, unfamiliarity, and every possible synonym that can be used to describe this condition.
I spoke earlier about the rotting fish. It does not help, coming out of the Obama years, to have a misogynistic, racist, pathological lying pig who sits atop the chain of command, in the Oval Office, who began his primary campaign by making sweeping statements about Mexicans and Blacks, in the midst of his derogatory remarks about where he could grab women. This level of ignorance, right off the bat, lost me. Unlike the love and the hope and the progress that we made between 2008 through 2016, the past four years of this man’s “presidency” has spread racism and fear-mongering and divisiveness like an STD that goes untreated and flares up every other week. Every opportunity that he has had to unite us, to empathize, to turn the page, to spark productive conversation, has failed.
For example, and this has bothered me for years, I am a proud graduate of the University of Virginia and Charlottesville is my go-to happy place. I worked my butt off for four years to earn the right to walk The Lawn. In 2017, white supremacists marched The Lawn with fire-lit torches in hand. Trump referred to them as “decent people”. Men armed with AK47s recently stormed state capitols and he called them the same. I do not support looting at all, but black communities began to protest the death of George Floyd, after years and years of repeated incidents of police brutality against unarmed black bodies, and he tweeted that they should be shot. The “President” of the United States tweeted that this particular demographic of protesters should be shot.
I do not throw around the word racist lightly, but I am throwing it like a fastball with laser-point accuracy at this man.
In conclusion.
As I finish this long day of writing and step down from my soapbox, I leave with this:
We have been here before. We have been here so many times before. None of us should be reliving the riots and protest of the 1960s, after our civil rights leaders presented clear and concise actionable solutions to fix this systemic issue.
If you are part of the problem of the system, please step aside. Question your life and seek help.
If you want to be part of the solution to the system, please step up. We need you.
We must work to figure this out, right now. There is no time for delay. There is only time for action, direction, understanding, and progress.
When I was a kid, I assumed that I would be worried about recharging my hoverboard in 2020, not protesting for civil rights in the middle of a damn pandemic.
Edward Daniels is an award-winning actor, Director of Scorpio Entertainment, Executive Producer of Monologue Madness, and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner of ANC 6D07 in Washington, DC, representing residents of Navy Yard, Capitol Riverfront, Capitol Quarter. He is a 2002 graduate of the University of Virginia. | www.EdwardDaniels.com | @edwarddaniels