This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 6 episode of "The Beat with Ari Melber."
Tuesday’s election is, no doubt, a day that will go down in history — but it will go down in history in a very complicated way.
As the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalition, I have the privilege of overseeing more than 240 national organizations. And after speaking with our leaders, talking to our communities, and processing what happened, I think one of the things that we have to recognize is we’re not going to get all the answers from just looking at data points. A much more complicated conversation lies ahead.
People aren’t data points. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it’s critical that we do not start pointing fingers about who is at fault or who did what, but instead try to understand what people’s needs are and what they wanted to hear about how those needs would get met.
We’re not going to get all the answers from just looking at data points. A much more complicated conversation lies ahead.
We must consider how we feed and seed the ground so that people can have more relationships, more conversations and more ability to understand the impact, not just of elections but the policies that are behind them.
Because I know that what many of us are bracing for are the very significant consequences a second Donald Trump presidency will have on the lives of so many Americans, whether you’re a white man working in a manufacturing plant or a Black woman who just wants to be a mother or someone who is Latino and a citizen and wonders if a family member who is not is going to be rounded up for mass deportation.
These are things that real families are going to experience and their consequences are going to be felt across communities, races and genders.
It’s time to realize that and find a path forward, together.