The irrepressible Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed off a new talent this weekend, taking to the stage with the Resistance Revival Chorus after a day of events in Queens, New York, meant to promote awareness of climate change and the Green New Deal.
She hosted a 5k in Queens Saturday that she billed as “a Family Fun Run supporting US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal on the Saturday following Earth Day.”
“We’re getting together for our own health, for our planet’s health...and to fight for the Green New Deal together,” the freshman congresswoman told the participants before they set off, reports the New York Post.
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A big part of the fundraising event (that was plastered all over Instagram) was NYC’s Resistance Revival Chorus — who performed with Kesha at the Grammys and at the Women’s March — bringing in spring with joyful noise.
Ocasio-Cortez described the chorus as “bringing us together in song” in her Instagram stories, and she was not wrong. She just probably didn’t expect to be literally brought up to sing onstage!
“And she can sing!” the group wrote on a collection of videos on their Instagram account, granting Ocasio-Cortez honorary membership in the group. The videos show the women, dressed in white, harmonising while the representative sings and dances (and somehow does not look goofy doing so).
The group writes on their website, “Music and protest songs have always been a hallmark of the great civil rights movements. We honor this tradition by uplifting these songs and creating new ones for the new resistance.”
The Bronx-born congresswoman did note on her own Instagram, “I can’t hold a note to save my life, but that didn’t stop me from catching the spirit today.”
The women sang together, “This joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me / The world didn’t give it, so the world can’t take it away.”
The event also included a performance by the all-women Brazilian Samba Reggae drum corp Fogo Azul NYC, who posed with Ocasio-Cortez after their performance.
Of course, the event was not all singing and dancing. Ocasio-Cortez wants to make something clear: the U.S. will inevitably end up paying for the effects of climate change, which already disproportionately impact marginalised communities. The question is when and how.