Tirrea Billings, activist and educator

We can't not expect the other side to react to the progress that's being made.

Welcome to What’s Left? I’m Amy, a writer and comedian with the ideals of a Marxist and the risk-aversion of a centrist. Each week, I interview someone left-wing about their political beliefs and the state of the left today.

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Tirrea Billings is a Washington D.C.-based activist, educator, and storyteller. Working in and around philanthropy and the nonprofit sectors, she helps social justice organisations, activists, educators, and political campaigns bring their stories to life. Not just to be heard, but also to shift power, spark action, and create lasting change for people and communities. She writes about the nonprofit industrial complex on her Substack, Philanthropy Unfiltered, and you can watch our whole conversation here!

Welcome, Tirrea, thanks for joining me. Here’s the first question I always ask everyone: if there was a version of the political spectrum where zero means you're a total centrist, -100, a fascist, and +100, extremely radically left, where would you put yourself?

Based on my views and what I envision for a more just future, I'd probably be considered radically left. Maybe a 100. I mean, with this political climate, more like 200.

Ha, amazing. And have you always felt that way?

I have always been left-leaning. I always considered myself a Democrat, but as I've gotten older and more involved in social justice and activism work, my views have become more radical and more progressive.

I don’t think it’s enough to just be a Democrat. We need to actually fight for a more radical landscape, one that serves everyone. We need to know what true liberty and justice for all could mean today, and not as it was written hundreds of years ago in America.

Do you still identify as a Democrat?

Yes, it’s on my voter card, but ideology-wise and politically, I see myself as a progressive on the radically left-leaning side of things.

Are there any politicians in the States that you particularly admire right now?

I have to talk about Zohran. That's someone that I'm really looking into and admiring. I’m hoping he starts a shift into more socialistic and progressive campaign runs.

He seems to have really sort of energised everyone. I'm even watching him from the UK. Where are you based at the moment?

I'm in the Washington D.C. area.

D.C. is obviously such a political space. Can you tell me about your work there? Do you work more with activists or establishment types?

I'm not as politically plugged in as you might think, living in Washington, D.C. I don't really work on the government side, I'm more involved with local, grassroots, on-the-ground work with lobbyist organisations around the D.C.

What type of lobbyist orgs are we talking about?

One that I work a lot with is Friends Committee on National Legislation. They're Quakers and a lot of their conversations on The Hill are about Medicaid, Medicare and the importance of those benefits for folks. It’s been my first time in that environment where I get to see people in real time fighting for different necessities that their communities need and exercising their right to talk to their congresspeople and their representatives. It's very liberating being in the room, watching that and capturing those moments as a photographer.

What do you mean by ‘liberating’?

When you hear the term ‘lobby’ or ‘lobbyist’, sometimes the first thought is the folks with the money, the millionaires, the billionaires.

That was my first thought, yes! It surprised me to hear you say that.

When you see more everyday folks—people who are going to be directly affected by these different types of legislation—going into these rooms and saying, ‘We actually need you to support or not support this for the benefit of our communities.’ That’s really powerful.

I wish more people would exercise that right and not feel like they can't do anything because they don't have a lot of money. Their voice still matters and their concerns still need to be heard. Change won't happen if we're sitting on the sidelines letting the other side get what they want.

I know it's easier said than done and you don't have to be a lobbyist to fight for the causes that you care about. But I just love seeing the grassroots and everyday folks that are on the ground doing that too. I feel like that often goes overlooked.

And are these people managing to get stuff done, even now? Maybe that's my political naivety coming through, but I would have imagined them not really having success during this new administration.

Weekly, I see courts making decisions to pull back some of the actions that Trump and his administration have been taking. And that's reassuring. Courts are making more just decisions and saying, ‘No, actually this isn't constitutional, you can't do this.’

A lot of legal organisations are putting in these lawsuits and winning. That is the biggest form of political resistance I’ve seen.

But also, a lot of times when I am in the rooms with the grassroots lobbyists, it is kind of discouraging.

In what way?