This is an important email. Please read.

Can I be honest with you, friend? Sometimes the way we celebrate and honor the contributions of Black Americans to our nation feels deeply frustrating. Commemorations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. focus on love and service, and completely erase Dr. King's messages about poverty, solidarity with exploited workers, opposition to war and American imperialism, and the very real danger he and his family were in every day – from the very same people who think it's passé to discuss institutional racism. Folks talk about the Civil Rights Movement as something in our past whose mission was accomplished. As progressives, we often fall short, too. We often lay blame on Black innovators and organizers of today. Rather than fight shoulder to shoulder, many of us claim their visions for liberation are too radical and their tactics so divisive as to cost us important progressive victories. [We keep plucking the leaves of structural racism instead of pulling it up by the roots. Anti-Blackness is at the root of so many attacks on our democracy. The Daily Kos Liberation League is committed to campaigns rooted in racial justice. Please donate $5 to support our work.]( [DONATE]( Mass incarceration is an extension of our history of chattel slavery. Black people are roughly [5 times more likely]( to be incarcerated than white people in the U.S, though in some states it's as high as 12 times. This disparity feeds widespread Black disenfranchisement, widespread Black unemployment, and widespread Black poverty. And since schools are largely funded by property taxes, poverty creates gaps in educational attainment. Gerrymandering dilutes Black political power. Tightening voting restrictions despite lacking any evidence for the need to also diminishes Black political power. [Prison gerrymandering](, or the practice of counting incarcerated people as residents of their facility instead of their communities, diverts federal representation and aid away from Black communities and into prison towns. Of course we know the fabricated CRT panic is a smokescreen for blatant racism. Yet, its proponents are getting Black professionals fired and stealing opportunities from Black children to see themselves fully represented in our national history and future–which can lead to apathy about civic engagement. I used to be a Black child. I know. [Please donate $5 today to support Daily Kos Liberation League campaigns focused on dismantling the prison industrial complex, reforming our democracy, working class solidarity, and uprooting anti-Blackness.]( [DONATE]( Keep fighting, Irna Landrum, Daily Kos Liberation League Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Sent via [ActionNetwork.org](. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Daily Kos, please [click here](.