The Narrative's 7053 Profile: Alphonso David

Originally published 4/13/20

The new President of the Human Rights Campaign discusses his new role in protecting and shaping the directives of the most vulnerable throughout the country — while warning what’s at stake for the community and democracy in should Trump win again in 2020. [Please note, this was written prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic]

“One of the biggest challenges that we face as a people – is we’ve stopped seeing each other as people. We need to get back to when we saw each other as human beings,” states Alphonso David, President of Human Rights Campaign (HRC) - the largest LGBTQIA advocacy group and political lobbying organization in the United States. His voice is declarative as he references the current state of American affairs, prefacing the importance of the 2020 election season and the growing challenge of what it will take to defeat president Trump. The president’s acquittal on impeachment charges in the beginning of the year and the stark ideological divide growing in the Democratic party aren’t assisting this agenda. And while the challenge to see people for people has always been difficult given America’s social structures, Trumpism’s ability to lock in on American society’s biases, fears, and unresolved tensions make its nature more pervasive -- fortifying a growing divide amongst American citizens. Without question, the virality of Trump’s conspiracy theories, purges, vitriol and exacerbation of culture wars to name a few, render connection as arduous despite us being more hyper-connected. The stakes are palpable for those who are for a progressive and inclusive agenda. And with the injection of Trumpism into the democratic experiment, America has entered into a slightly deformed stage of authoritarianism which makes Alphonso David’s fight for the vulnerable that much more difficult. 

David’s ascension to one of the most powerful organizations for advocacy of human rights in the world, shouldn’t come as a surprise. He boasts a proven track record of execution, supplemented with an unapologetic nature for who he is when it comes to fighting for the most vulnerable. However, his ascension comes at one of the most uncharacteristic and unprecedented times in American history relative to Trumpism and the culprit’s ascension to our executive branch. Trumpism is highly formidable, and just as pervasive as it is feckless in the evolution of the American experiment, it can easily be absorbed by the most decent replacing structure with chaos, effortlessly. Its nature routinely calls into question America’s civic religion, values, and thwarts the nation’s evolving moral trajectory, which as of late – is much unclear. It is digitally-savvy in its ability to leverage technology and create a spin when backed into a corner as being pushed into a corner, is when it’s on its A-game. It hijacks the critical thinking skills of American citizens daily with conspiratorial conjectures, lies, and/or inflammatory remarks past the point of reason, further echoed by ardent supporters in Congress which reverberates from mainstream and independent right-wing media outlets. America is being tested in worst-case scenarios, with a lack of foresight from its leaders, albeit some of its citizens, on the ramifications of unity and longevity for the country. After all, it was the people of America that led to the ascendance of Trump given this is a democracy. This only makes David’s role at HRC in the fight for equality far more complex.

Since the election of 2016, America has been marked by unprecedented changes (politically, socially and economically), as attacks on its structures and institutions under current leadership have upended and/or are upending established norms and traditions of governing and political decorum. David’s directives to protect and defend those of which he advocates are critical with America’s changing role domestically and abroad — his own party changing too. A far more progressive left is emerging within the Democratic party despite the party’s attempt to maintain a more moderate stance. Fragmentation is not what the party needs should it want to defeat Trump in 2020, yet with each divisive tweet, the stakes and trajectory of the most vulnerable are uncertain as issues relative to their fate get swept up in chaotic fashion as attention diverts from the issues to him. This chaotic nature has found its way into the legislative and judicial branch, exacerbating a partisan climate by dripping down into American homes where politics and identity have further crystallized into forms of tribalism around our two-party system — as if it’s a football game of conservatives against the “Demorats”. Trump does little to nothing to bring the country together, but he does make American citizens question their values given how his decorum exposes a great deal of American democracy functions despite being an existential threat to its governing bodies. However, America isn’t the only nation facing an existential threat to its institutions.  Across the western hemisphere, democratic nations are embattled in a cultural and political ideological warfare making David’s ascension to HRC emblematic when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable, albeit, salvaging democracy’s progressive trajectory.

Solutions left unaddressed by globalism have produced a growing tide of nationalism cloaked as conservatism, that seeks to scapegoat the world’s problems on some of the most vulnerable. 21st century nationalism has created a strain on western democracy’s progression. History has shown that the westernized amalgamation mainstream strand when left unchecked has already proven deadly given the genocidal practices inflicted on the American black population which went on to inspire practices implemented in Nazi Germany towards its Jewish population. New technology such as social media, only aims to accelerate prejudices and propaganda at lightening speed — faster than the population has the ability to educate itself on its own biases. Demagogues of this particular strand incite cultural and political ideological warfare to gain power at the expense of established institutions and norms, the intent being to damage a connection amongst people from seeing people. This can consist of peddling conspiratorial theories of unfounded prejudices around the most vulnerable to a majority demographic, exacerbating their known or unknown internal biases and prejudices, while making the connection of their economic distress as a result of the most vulnerable “taking” something. It’s a strategy that catapulted Trump into the White House. A heavy percentage of white American citizens coalesced around the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 despite his racist campaign attacks against; Mexican-Americans, practitioners of Muslim faith, to even former President Obama with the Birther campaign. The strategy of the demagogue is to conquer and divide, exploiting social structures that fan the flames of cultural warfare, intensifying the us versus them mentality.

As another example, many nationalists in European countries reference the plight of Christian democracy against globalization and routinely push the notion of threats against traditional order from the emergence of new narratives towards the majority demographic who experience forms of economic distress. In response to “no economic solutions” offered from neo-liberal leaders to this majority demographic, a cultural response is replaced by the demagogue who re-routes susceptible persons of the majority demographic’s distress towards the most vulnerable. It is here we see how the demagogue will cite a sense of “cultural loss” as a result of the country’s economic distress which ultimately taps into the prejudices and fears of the most susceptible towards the most vulnerable. Anything offered as progression or inclusion outside the mainstream narrative are now met with cries of the “liberal agenda” or “enlightened liberal elites,” artfully constructed by the demagogue who scapegoats progressive ideas of multiculturalism and immigration as threats to the majority demographic. It’s the ability to tap into basic instinct that leads to the demagogue upending social and political structures for gain, dividing the people further apart. In America, it reached a fever pitch in 2015, further widening the divide of its growing multicultural country and anglicized Judeo-Christian values.

America’s Judeo-Christian values heavily influence the nation’s social structures, making the nation’s trajectory towards equality, a bit more complex in the western world with the increase of multiculturalism or even LGBTQIA rights. Variables such as these have riffened the Judeo-Christian traditional values, that for the last 200 years have aimed to homogenize social order and the ever-growing diverse fabric of American society. The country’s social systems of race, sexual orientation, income, gender, etc. further complicate these matters under these traditional values, given the growing disparities of inequality. It’s easy to see why David’s agenda can be interpreted as a threat in his efforts to protect the LGBTQIA community, leaving many to begin to question to whom the greatest country in the world was designed for? As social order is being reconfigured in America’s evolution, this ripens a culture war that a demagogue, albeit a president, can manipulate via a slogan like “Make America Great Again” taking full advantage of the country’s melting pot. The technological quickening and media pulse only aim to worsen the divide, however, there are institutions set in place to curb this as America’s malleability has produced variables that are determined to remain fixed and fight in the quest for American equality.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans. Founded in 1980 as one of the first gay and lesbian political action committee in the United States, it represents a force of more than 3 million members and supporters nationwide.  The fund’s mission was to provide financial support on behalf of the gay and lesbian community to political candidates who supported gay civil rights legislation and in due time, it would rise to become the 17th largest independent political action committee, expanding its arms beyond political and lobbying work throughout the 1990’s. From its corporate equality index, to its role in the repeal of “Don’t ask don’t tell”, to marriage equality, to the endorsement of former President Barack Obama - the HRC has challenged some of the most defining and pivotal moments in American history that have shaped our landscape to be more progressive and inclusive for society’s most vulnerable and marginalized. It’s newest edition is poised to make it a greater force in the 21st century to counteract the aggressive parts of America’s experiment and its trajectory towards equality. 

“I am humbled to be in this role in such a critical time in our history,” states David affirmatively. David is the first melanated-black and/or person of color to attain the position of the Human Rights Campaign, and a resume littered with activism and advocacy for the most marginalized in the country, he is of the current zeitgeist as all roads have led him to this point. A former attorney for Lambda Legal working on LGBT+ cases across the country, David was appointed to the New York State Division of Human Rights in 2007 and was subsequently appointed to Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights cases in New York. He would later go on to be appointed as Chief Counsel to the Governor by Andrew Cuomo in 2015 before taking his current position in August 2019. The HRC is undoubtedly a formidable variable in the 21st century version of the American experiment, however it needs to adapt quickly and have the agility to maneuver the growing aggression against its foundations. This type of agility requires a leader who holds a more nuanced approach due to fighting aggression regularly, furthermore, one who has lived the experience and possesses a mental strength rooted in a high-degree of resilience and execution.

Alphonso David is a black gay man in America. When it comes to fortifying community strength as well as building progressive and sustainable movements around equality, this is innate. Being a black American and gay, undoubtedly brings out an innate aggression from society towards these individuals yet, can inadvertently strengthen one’s resolve in the fight for equality. LGBTQIA black Americans have continually advanced human rights not just for America yet for the world. From Bayard Rustin to Marsha P. Johnson, he’s a descendant of black gay American citizens who have helped fuel greater equality for all around basic human rights. In this unprecedented time, they are needed.  “Again, we have to get to the point where we see each other as people, now more so than ever,” he continues, “If we’re looking at progressive movements and sustainable movements - how do we build our communities and democracies? America is an experiment,” says David. While that may be true, our scramble to pick up and reassess the values and variables knocked over by the executive branch’s current inhabitant, increases the nation’s fragile state and desired trajectory towards equality.

A 2020 American morning before coffee may consist of flagrant aggression towards civil liberties of the nation’s historically marginalized and persecuted groups; a reexamination of American democratic norms and principles, a verbal assault at the National Prayer breakfast, ongoing provocation with authoritarian leaders, adult pornstars, as well as a 24/7 news cycle of hyper political discourse and polarization in the form of 280 characters or less. Due diligence to catch up with critical foreign and domestic policies are dismayed due to hogging of media coverage and lies from the current president’s thumbs and mouth, making it easier to tune out despite what’s at stake. That even if one rejects Trump and Trumpism bellicosity -- the trumpification of federal courts (1) are reflective of a possibly contentious upcoming battle for progressive civil liberties among the most vulnerable in the country. Because there is already an established legacy in the American court system of the current administration, this will undoubtedly set up a clash between the progressive directives of HRC long after Trump leaves. To complicate what will be a tiresome fight, post-impeachment Trump has been unleashed — making stamina and endurance vital.

From his slander of former Vice President Joe Biden (a la “Ukraine-Hunter Biden scandal”) to his divisive tweets of the DNC robbing far-left Democrat Socialist Bernie Sanders potential nomination — Trump is dividing and conquering all, while exacerbating tensions of an evolving Democrat party. There is no new bottom, as even conservative politicians across the country feel emboldened to push ultra-conservative agendas on state and local levels that may prove harmful to the most vulnerable in the long-run. Most notably, two Ohio lawmakers have proposed to ban medical care for transgender teens (2) and that’s not to include the at least 26 deaths of black transgendered women in 2019 (3) — proving how vulnerable of a community transgendered persons alread are. The functions of American democracy are undoubtedly hitting a new low, but to imagine what 4 more years will do if Trump wins in 2020 could prove disastrous. Without question, it’s critical to defeat Trump, yet the language must be reflective of this in order to fight this fight for the most vulnerable. All voices must be heard. American democracy does not and will never be just for white-American heteronormative men despite the current administration’s brilliance to galvanize a base. No one is going back. Yet to say we’re out of the clear as we head deeper into 2020 election season is an understatement given that many American citizens don’t see the abnormality in having a reality television star as president — and leader of the free world. An understanding of people and for us to better connect with one another in today’s divisive climate is tantamount. David offers 2 critical solutions as a result.

“Any individual can host an event with their friends and family and begin to see issues among themselves,” states David. What is the underlying theme behind this solution? To vote. Once you make the effort to understand people, you realize the importance of your vote, in how you vote. David continues, “There are so many ways you can inform people and exercise your right to vote. You could host a party or a fundraising event or even do a webinar.” HRC is known for hosting these events and gatherings across the country and can help with this should you choose to reach out. What’s a stake if we choose not to see people and disregard our right and the impact of our vote? “We’re going to lose our democracy,” states David. “Especially for minorities, the rule of law already disregards and will be disregarded around minorities and marginalized people for the country.” 

The lives of the most vulnerable will partly be contingent on Alphonso’s directives, which is no small feat given today’s climate in the fight for equality. The rights and values of the most vulnerable are intrinsically linked to the progressivism of America and the experiment of American democracy, their own existence routinely challenging the ambiguity and the principles and declarations outlined by the framers. With a conundrum of 21st century variables like Trump, technology, etc. the desired trajectory of American equality that millions share along with David are under assault from this current administration, and so too is American democracy. David forewarns about the threat of democracy to marginalized members should we not take voting seriously in the upcoming 2020 election season. “As students of history, we see how this happens.” While this is true, America’s future and trajectory has always resided in the people — and there are folks outside of us that will participate in the upcoming 2020 election. Yet, it’s important to accept and believe that our lives are intrinsically linked to the formation and trajectory of this experiment. At the end of the day, it is up to us choose how we want to move forward and be heard despite what threats are around the corner.

 (1) 1 out of every 4 judges on the federal court is now under Trump

(2) At least 10 other states have considered similar bills banning gender-related treatments for those younger than 18 

(3) “Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2020” https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020