Why Progressives Continue to Lose on Civil Rights and How to Create Equality for All

Unfortunately, the laudable American cause of racial equality has taken multiple steps back merely because skilled conservative propagandists dictated the terms of the argument. Dictating the terms of the argument leads to a strategic advantage in winning arguments. Often, the noble loses to the hateful merely because of poor tactics. The argument is lost before it starts.
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Progressive forces have engaged conservatives on their ground rather than using an asymmetric attack strategy. However, they are consistently failing, primarily due to ineffective and inconsistent messaging and a lack of focus on progressive legislation and challenges through the legal system. 

Christian Nationalist Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito Delights in Taking America Back to the 19th Century

The situation is like the anti-abortion movement and the resultant truncation of abortion rights. Conservative forces are dismantling voting rights and voting access, eliminating legal abortion access, expanding private school vouchers, gerrymandering to reduce minority participation drastically, preparing to restrict contraception, and other corrosive actions.

When one thinks about leaps forward in progressive actions, they are led by oppressed people rather than smug ‘thought leaders’ or wealthy folks similarly with no skin in the game.

Unfortunately, racial and other categories fracture civil rights activism – Black, Asian, Latin, Jewish, and other groups such as the LGTBQ communities and disabled people of all kinds. Each is active for its respective group, often ethnic. The ethnic groups seem focused on moving themselves into a more desirable category – in other words, to become white or the equivalent of such, and then abandoning support for the remaining people.

The power of the ‘majority minority’ concept is unity in method, collaboration, and coordination in methods and focus. And it is not happening.
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Some dismiss the idea of great leaders and defer to the notion that social and economic factors create leaders. Taking that argument to its logical conclusion, one would think that social and economic factors are not driving the desire for movement forward in civil rights. That is not the case.

Where is the leadership? The NAACP president is Derrick Johnson. Have you ever heard of him? Recent leaders have included Bruce S. Gordon, Benjamin Todd Jealous, Dennis Courtland Hayes, and Cornell William Brooks, similarly leaders with no national presence. Long gone are the days when the NAACP, formerly the center of the civil rights movement, played a significant role in the narrative.
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Are there any nationally known civil rights leaders? No, there are not. The leadership vacuum is stunning.

Melinda French Gates Married Into Incredible Wealth and Now Poses as a Human Rights Activist

The problem is a lack of unity, unfocused efforts, and incredibly poor messaging by ‘leaders’ who are often self-appointed and engaged in hobby jobs. Melinda French Gates, who married and then divorced her way into incredible wealth, preaching about equality is laughable at its core. Yet, the public does not seem to perceive the hypocrisy in her and similar presentations. A discerning crowd would laugh these posers off-stage.

Over the past decade, academics have produced thoughtful and vital works that deepen our understanding of racism, ethnocentrism, and social changes. These books and publications have advanced the discussion and have been quite helpful in advancing the cause of human rights.

But academic ‘thought leaders’ and talking heads seem more like entrepreneurs aiming to pile on the interest in race and racism in the United States. Often, they work at institutions that promote racist policies like preferred admissions to legacy students and the nefarious admission by donation. The irony of arguing against racism from a platform paid by organizations with anti-progressive policies seems lost on them. When one’s paymaster is a pillar of and profiteer from institutionalized racism, arguments by their employees against racism are little more than a fig leaf to cover the ugly truth that the educational institution’s policies support racism. These presentations enable the funding institution to conceal its support of anti-progressive actions.

As for the academics, liberals who support various civil rights groups as a self-branding exercise, and the smug wealthy who have never stretched a paycheck, they can be depended on to vote, but as far as meaningful action, they will provide little assistance. These groups appear to offer more in the way of difficulty than help at times. While their intentions are laudable, most people cannot relate to them, and their presentations support the idea that these people do not or cannot understand progressive movements.

As a masking exercise in the George Floyd era, corporations and organizations, including colleges and universities, created diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Similarly, these were fig leaves to hide structural barriers to equality. Corporations are now quietly walking DEI departments back as quickly as they created them. Similarly to academics preaching about civil rights, one sees lip service but no results. Corporations are the foundation of hyper-capitalism, and they will never be the answer to human rights concerns.

There is a way to attack reactionary forces, dictate the terms of a successful engagement, and move forward with a country of opportunity for all.  The root cause of inequality in the United States is the asymmetric income and net worth distribution due to hyper-capitalism, the current tax code, and the wealthy's excessive impact on political and legal processes.

A critical missing part in the arguments for civil rights is that everyone has at most one degree of separation from someone with a dog in the fight. Consider the general population affected by inequality – aged people, Dreamers, immigrants, women, racial and ethnic minorities, the LGTBQ community, disabled people, and poor people.

The most compelling strategy for movement forward in civil rights is amalgamating the affected into one much larger, inclusive group, merging the disparate groups into a much larger organization with focused leadership, messaging, and actions to move forward in civil rights—legislation, legal challenges, and support for political leaders who support the cause.

This alternative would be to unite people unsatisfied with the current concentration of wealth at the expense of many people, combined with other special interest groups, such as feminists, along with the current array of ethnic and racial groups. The United States is incredibly wealthy, and plenty of resources exist to create wealth, including meaningful and rewarding jobs and care for the sick, disabled, and elderly. The United States is also a country that is struggling to fulfill its vision of all people being equal, especially in this age of hyper-capitalism.
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The wealth issue could unite a coalition of disparate groups currently divided, including many now in the populist Trump coalition, poor whites. Most activists in civil rights argue the problem is systemic racism and outright bigotry and bias, and those are pervasive. However, there is also the truth that absent the tax code revisions ushered in by the Reagan administration, the accumulation and hoarding of wealth would never have occurred and the welfare of all people, particularly oppressed minorities, would have been assured. The federal treasury would have supported investment in economic initiatives, lower tax rates for Americans with modest incomes, social welfare programs, a guaranteed basic income, government-funded college and trade school education, robust funding for late-life healthcare, and other initiatives such as child poverty reduction.

Former President Barack Obama Hit the Jackpot and Now Spends His Time Golfing and Sailing, as Civil Rights Causes Devolve

To conduct such evolutionary change in the civil rights movement, articulate and credible leadership capable of articulating a vision and directing messaging and initiatives would be foundational. Are there such people around? Looking at the Democratic Party ranks, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Raphael Warnock, and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez come to mind. Unfortunately, despite a fair amount of seniority, none have moved the needle on meaningful reform. While an astute politician, Hakeem Jeffries, currently the minority leader of the House of Representatives, lacks the inspirational speaking skills to be the public-facing leader desired and necessary.

Dynamic leadership would come from the margins of the political structure instead of the current political party structure. The role of dark money in political processes has reinforced incumbency and throttled change, as reflected in the current static governance.

Concept and labeling in these matters are critical. Consider the moniker chosen by anti-abortion activists – ‘pro-life,’ a masterful accomplishment. Who isn’t pro-life? And if you are not pro-life, aren’t you pro-death? 
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Consider a name for this movement, such as the ‘Equality Project.’  This could flank reactionary and conservative Christian forces with a compelling name, central ethic, and consistent messaging to take the high ground in the argument. People who want equality and the trappings such as equal pay, access to public education, reform to the tax code, access to birth control, abortion, health care, freedom from hate, bigotry, and harassment, and legislation against the imposition of partisan religious values.