With his marathon speech, Cory Booker showed us how to fight
For more than 25 hours, from Monday at 7 p.m. until Tuesday at 8:05 p.m., Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) displayed a historic level of legitimate cardio — stamina — speaking on the Senate floor against the Trump administration's onslaught against everything Washington. His marathon address broke the record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond's 24-hour filibuster against civil rights legislation in 1957.
As a political effort, Booker's speech wasn't even an actual filibuster, just a political spectacle. But in a fight, spectacle matters. Persuasion matters. Symbolism matters. Winning the crowd matters. To stand for 24-plus hours is an honorable display of physical and mental strength. And let's be honest, we need to see way more fighting spirit from the Democrats.
Maybe it is appropriate that a Black politician has broken Thurmond's long-standing record. The segregation spirit of Strom Thurmond lives on in Donald Trump's administration. The street art near the White House celebrating the Black Lives Matters movement has been painted over. Government workers are arduously wiping websites, publications and museums of Black people, LGBTQ+ people, Native Americans and women. Booker's inspiring words have done nothing to stop any of this.
It's notable that, so far, Booker was willing to put his vocal cords and stamina on the line, while another Black Democrat, Rep. Al Green (Texas), was willing to be physically escorted out of Trump's address to Congress to protest the president's agenda.
However, Black people have been exhorting each other to stay home from the fight and let others do the work this time. As protests are planned for this weekend, Black social media is encouraging African Americans to sit this one out. There are memes and videos of Black people in robes with drinks in hand, staying home — asserting that we did our part to vote and march, and that our priorities now should be self-care and safety. Even offline, conversations have focused on long-term rethinks about self-sufficiency, and for some, joining the increasing numbers of Black people leaving the United States altogether.
Perhaps this is where Booker's spectacle and persuasion matter the most: to stir the masses to wake up. What Booker did will live on for the history books, but we need bodies on the line in the here and now. As a female martial artist and a connoisseur of gym culture, I know that the physical matters. Will people be willing to put their bodies at risk to protect this country? When the courts fail, when universities and businesses and law firms fall into line under Trump's threats, will there be people willing to form human chains and shield the vulnerable? Will they fill the streets and create a nonviolent visual wall of protest? What are we willing to not just say or tweet — what are we willing to do?
This fight will be as physical as it will be legal, procedural and political. And if Booker is any example, it will take stamina and an indomitable will. If you believe in America, you can't gas out now.
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