“My big hope
will be that there is some kid right now who is watching this campaign who is
saying to themselves, ‘You know what, I can do that too,'” Kenyatta told LGBTQ
Nation.
Kenyatta could
become the first out gay man elected to the U.S. Senate, as well as the first
Black senator from Pennsylvania.
“Those
distinctions are important,” he said, “but it’s less about it being important
to me and it’s more about the ripple effect I hope it creates for people who
see themselves and therefore understand that their possibilities are limitless.
It is so difficult for kids to be something they can’t see.”
Kenyatta
announced his Senate run last February and has long been considered a rising
star in the Democratic party.
In a landslide
victory in 2018, he became the first LGBTQ person of color to be
elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly at the age of 28.
Chronicled in
a short documentary called Going
Forward, Kenyatta’s intense passion and commitment to change has
captivated many.
At the 2020
Democratic National Convention, he was one of 17 rising star Democrats to
deliver the keynote address and one of the first three out LGBTQ people to ever
do so.
He decided to
run for U.S. Senate because he believes that right now, there is “an assault on
the core question of whether or not democracy could work for people.”
Kenyatta
thinks it should work for working families and believes in what he calls a
“basic bargain” that says everyone should have access to safe and affordable
housing, quality healthcare, a safe education, and clean neighborhoods.
“That pretty
basic bargain has been out of reach for a lot of people and certainly was out
of reach for my family,” he said. “I think if we don’t ensure that basic
bargain is accessible to all people, then you continue to have the erosion in
people’s faith and trust in democracy’s ability to work.”
Kenyatta has
racked up dozens of endorsements in his senatorial campaign, including from
feminist icon Gloria Steinem, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), the LGBTQ
Victory Fund, the American Federation of Teachers, and Brand New Congress – the
organization that helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) win her
Congressional seat.
And if
elected, he has a big agenda.
Among his
major priorities as a Senator would be advocating for the passage of the John
Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act – both of which have been
blocked by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) refusal to
support filibuster reform.
“If you don’t
have the ability to vote… then you don’t even have the capacity to really
participate in a democracy, which is the floor of all of this. So we have to
get rid of the filibuster and pass [this legislation].”
Kenyatta also
wants to focus on expanding healthcare access, raising the minimum wage and
increasing federal education funding – including prioritizing universal pre-K
and affordable childcare.
Fighting the
climate crisis is also key to that “basic bargain” of getting to live in a safe
and clean neighborhood, he said.
Kenyatta also
made it clear that he is not willing to entertain the “lies, misinformation,
and disinformation,” in which the Republican party has been trafficking.
“We have one
party who has decided that the core of what they believe is that the election was
stolen, even though that is completely false, and if their person doesn’t win
they should change the rules.”
“It’s not just
two sides who disagree, there is one side, Republicans, who are actively
anti-Democratic… If Republicans want to join us in reality I’m willing to work
with them on whatever we can.”
Kenyatta said
he “will push back every time there is nonsense being spewed,” but that he also
believes in working as hard on the issues the two parties agree on as the ones
they disagree on.
“I am willing
to work with anybody if they are trying to advance a thoughtful solution to any
of those buckets I mentioned around America’s basic bargain. When you grow up
in a working poor family the way I did, you don’t give a damn who the solution
came from… What people want are solutions to the problems facing them in their
lives.”
He added that
as a state representative, he introduced one of the bills most dear to his
heart, Phillip’s Law, with a Republican. The bill, named for an 11-year-old boy
in his district who died by suicide, sought to expand mental healthcare access
to students in schools. It did not become law, but Kenyatta hopes to prioritize
expanding mental health access for youth as a senator.
Kenyatta
follows a rich family legacy of standing up for his community. His grandfather,
the late Muhammad Kenyatta, was a civil rights activist who he often thinks
about in his own fight for justice.
“As has often
been said, we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams, and I certainly feel that I am
the wildest dream of my grandfather and my ancestors, but what I also think
about is the fact that this idea of expanding the basic bargain so it reaches
everywhere is sadly not a new pursuit.”
He remembers
his grandmother calling him up in 2019 about an issue being debated on the
floor of the Pennsylvania House. “She saw it and said, ‘Baby I’m so sorry. I
thought we had fixed some of this stuff.'”
“I refuse to
have a conversation like that with my grandkids,” Kenyatta declared. “This is
our opportunity to get this stuff done… If government doesn’t work for working
families, this experiment in democracy is at risk… Every generation has a
responsibility to make it work and pull us closer, even if that means kicking
and screaming, to what the American promise is for every single one of us.”
Editor’s note:
This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the
Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860.
It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a
safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call
the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
SOURCE: LGBTQ NATION
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