Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors recently wrote a letter addressed to “President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris” requesting a meeting to discuss the radical organization’s expectations and priorities, Fox News reports.
“Without the resounding support of Black people, we would be saddled with a very different electoral outcome,” Cullors wrote on Saturday. “In short, Black people won this election.”
Cullors pressed the duo to give top priority to a “well-thought out, community-driven, fully resourced agenda that addresses the particular challenges faced by Black people.”
Cullors said they “want to be heard and our agenda to be prioritized.”
If Biden and Harris make it to the White House, it remains to be seen if they can make good on their campaign promises – to create a police oversight board to combat police brutality, particularly against Black and minority people, within his first 100 days in the White House.
After the death of George Floyd in May police reform has been at the forefront of American politics this election season. Since Floyd’s death, activists are calling to “defund the police,” a plan Biden has not really shown much support, to the dismay of his more progressive supporters.
During his premature victory speech last week, Biden shouted out his Black supporters and thanked them for their vote.
“The African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours,” Biden said at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. “I said from the outset I wanted a campaign that represented America, and I think we did that. Now that’s what I want the administration to look like.”
Cullors did not shy away from critiquing Biden and Harris’ individual records on issues of race and reminded them that they both “expressed regrets regarding your record on issues impacting Black people,” and advised them to “take your direction from Black grassroots organizers that have been engaged in this work for decades, with a legacy that spans back to the first arrival of enslaved Africans.”
“We would like to be actively engaged in your Transition Team’s planning and policy work,” Cullors said. “Let’s get to work!”
Cullors described herself as the protégé of Eric Mann, former agitator of the Weather Underground domestic terror organization, she explained in a 2018 interview with Democracy Now!
“We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories. And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk,” Cullors said in a 2015 interview with Jared Ball of The Real News Network.