During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-CA) passionately defended DEI programs, tore into Republicans' efforts to eliminate them.
00:10I'm a great granddaughter of someone who had a literal yoke on her neck.
00:17A literal yoke.
00:18And I will give the four and a half minutes of my time to my people from Malvern, Arkansas, from those fields.
00:27And I want to be clear that four out of the five of you last year posted on your social media the words of Dr. King.
00:41And there are so few folks who actually have studied, who are clear on the theology of freedom of King.
00:48Very few of you have read and studied and have sat in Ebenezer Baptist Church.
00:53So I would ask you, you keep Dr. King's name out of your mouth.
00:58If you, like me and the many scholars who will be watching studied King, you know that he and the mothers and the fathers of the civil rights movement and of the movement for emancipation,
01:11not only would be struck by the conversations in this room, but would be shattered by the consequence of lies, of hatred, of abuse of this administration.
01:23In the name of folks who worked to make this country more free.
01:29Children of Abraham.
01:31For real.
01:31I want to be clear for the young people that are listening today, here in this audience, this conversation is not about an acronym.
01:39It's just not.
01:41It's just not.
01:43This is a conversation.
01:45It's an attack.
01:46It's an attack on what you see right here.
01:49Now see, who's on this side of the dais?
01:51This was never the plan.
01:53It was never the plan to have people of color in positions where they would be able to speak from this place.
02:01In fact, in fact, folks had to fight tooth or nail to gain access to the front door to this Capitol.
02:12I want to be very clear about that.
02:14Today's hearing says quietly and actually out loud who the majority believe is allowed to belong in this country.
02:24They use Dr. King's name in deep vein.
02:28Who has a place in the hierarchy that was never meant to be questioned.
02:33The majority is leading a coordinated effort.
02:36I want to be clear to push us back to a segregated America based on race, based on ethnicity, based on national origin, based on sex, based on sexual orientation and gender identity and disability.
02:50Inclusion as a disabled woman, they have been very, very clear, including folks who look different than the standardized white man in this country.
02:59Folks who are disabled.
03:00Folks who love differently.
03:02Those folks should not be at the center of power.
03:05That's the plan.
03:07They are motivated by a fear, a fear of a multiracial and a multicultural democracy.
03:13A fear, a fear that freedom of co-equal citizens living as their authentic selves with pride and a fear.
03:23They have a fear of accountability.
03:26We must name this conversation today for what it truly is.
03:30It is a bigotry.
03:31It is a hypocrisy.
03:33Republicans, like I said before, will quote Dr. King all day, will bring forth Lincoln, and will talk about Frederick Douglass in the same breath that they are gutting civil rights offices in our governments.
03:47In the same breath where they seek to ban AP African American studies that tells the true story of this country.
03:55It ain't just one story, it ain't just one story, it is a complete story, but folks on this dais don't want you to learn it.
04:01The hypocrisy from the Republicans is not only shameful, it is anti-American.
04:06President Trump and others have purged more than 275,000 federal workers through mass terminations and unlawful firings while, check this out, preparing draft hiring guidance that would screen job applicants for political loyalty to the administration rather than the Constitution.
04:29The Trump administration put 500,000 qualified, qualified federal workers with disabilities, jobs at risk.
04:39Half of those are veterans.
04:40The Trump administration has forced out transgender service members who have served their country with loyalty and love while elevating dangerously unqualified news anchors.
04:52To lead our nation's defense department, the Trump administration rewards loyalty over expertise, obedience over justice.
05:01These attacks are central to a broader agenda, let me just finish this one sentence, that criminalizes protests, that bans books, that erases history, and redefines its national identity in narrow and violent terms.
05:16A 1950s America is what the goal of this conversation is, and some of us say, hell no.
