This past November, Cori Bush was elected as the first Black congresswoman from Missouri, a state where she'd been running for federal office since 2016. Now that she's officially made it to Washington D.C., she hasn't wasted any time making a name for herself. A member of the progressive “Squad,” Bush has channeled her activism—she began protesting on the streets of Ferguson, MO in 2014—into advocating for a $15 minimum wage, voting rights for incarcerated people, and abolishing the filibuster. She's spoken out against white supremacy on the House floor—and then against her colleagues who booed her while doing so.

This Wednesday, Bush went live on ELLE's Facebook for a round of 20 Questions to discuss being a “politivist” and her work in the 117th Congress. She was joined by A'shanti Gholar, the founder of The Brown Girls Guide to Politics, as part of a special Women's History Month collaboration between ELLE and BGG. Find an abridged version of their conversation, plus a few bonus questions below, or watch the video here:

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One of the things I admire is how unapologetic you are. That includes calling out some of your colleagues, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. You don't have a problem condemning white supremacy on the House floor. But we know that comes with criticism, especially for Black, brown, and Indigenous women of color. How do you combat that?

I think a lot of what people don't realize is that, like you said, I'm just being me. My priority is the people who have been left out, who haven't felt seen, haven't felt heard. So when my colleagues make statements or when they do things that I know for a fact are rooted in white supremacy…when I see that my colleagues are perpetuating it right in front of my face, then I have to call it out. Because the thing is, I would call it out if I was at home on the street.

My background getting to Congress, part of that started on the streets of Ferguson, fighting to save Black lives. I said, “the same fight you see me fight out on the streets”—that same bit of passion and that same courage and that bullhorn—“is what I'm taking to Congress.” So I don't care. I don't care what your title is. I don't care who your mama is, how much money you have, none of that matters to me. I care about you treating my people right. I care about the dignity and safety and the peace and justice for my folks. When people say, “Oh, you only care about Black people. Oh you only care about brown people,” you know what? What I'm doing is I'm speaking up for people that you left out. If you would have fixed the problem before I got here, then I wouldn't have to do it. But because we got a problem in those areas, and you seem not to want to tackle it, I'll do it. And if you don't like the way that I do it, that's not on me. You should have fixed it, because I'm a product of your lack of leadership.

As you said, you are a Black Lives Matter activist. How has that informed how you approach your work in Congress?

Activism informs every single thing that I do. It's how I ended up in Congress. I felt compelled to go to the streets of Ferguson, which was only six minutes from my house at the time. I had no clue that I was becoming an activist. Most of the people that were out there at the time, we just wanted to see justice. But what we learned was when we put our collective voices together, and when we're persistent and we're diligent and we're clear about message, then we can see change.

What happened was the powers messed up and let us touch change. We didn't get all that we wanted, but we touched change. We saw how, if we continued in that work, that we could see more. I say it all the time: I'm a politivist. I'm a politician and an activist, I've married the two. I care about change, and if your feelings are in the way of that, if your dignified clothing and your respectability speech is in the way of that, then let me come and shut it down with my AAVE. Let me shut it down with my hair when I put them in braids, or if I walk up on the House floor with a T-shirt on that says “Black Lives Matter.” Whatever that has to be, I will shut it down to make sure that we get what we need. That's the activist side. And then the politician side says, I belong here. I got a pin. I got a pen to write some legislation to help us get what we need.

We have to talk about the increase in anti-Asian violence we’re seeing sweeping the country. Can you talk about ways you're standing in solidarity with the Asian American community and give people advice about other things they can do?

I'm so grateful for the conversation because we don't want there to be people in our communities who feel like they're not seen or heard. Standing in solidarity means listening and hearing the stories of our Asian friends, those family members and neighbors who are scared, who are experiencing this racism every single day. It also means calling it out, the white supremacy that fueled it, no matter what's happened. Because sometimes people will say, this time it wasn't a white person that did it. Well, you know what? The root of it all, period and point blank, is white supremacy. That is what we have to tackle.

I want all members of our AAPI community to know that we stand with you, and we love you. So organize, galvanize, and get justice. Get involved. The same way as the Black community [has] said, “We don't want our white community to take over and do our work for us. Don't come over and take over our movement. We want you to support, and work on what that support actually looks like,” in the same way, we do that for our AAPI community. How can we support? We can't look at another movement and say, “This is the best way to do it.” We need to find out what they need and then bring that forward.

Right now Georgia is on a lot of people's minds. It's one of the states that passed basically Jim Crow legislation when it comes to voting rights. What advice would you give to people to fight back against this?

First, we need every single person in this fight, because disenfranchisement in all forms is a threat to our democracy. Republicans have put forward over 250 bills aimed at silencing Black and brown voices and the voices of our Indigenous communities, including in my home state of Missouri. This is just a desperate, racist effort to suppress our voices.

Much of it is happening at the state level. So calling your state representatives, calling your state Senate, your governor. Organize, demonstrate. Don't think that you have to have this huge background behind you to do the work. Just get active, start somewhere. We need everybody's hand in this because when we look and say, “Well, this didn't happen,” maybe you were the one that could have helped bring it along.

The most important thing you can do now: calling your senator and asking them to support the For the People Act to expand those voting rights and combat these state efforts to disenfranchise our communities.

cori bush and jamaal bowman
Drew Angerer//Getty Images
Rep. Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman on the House steps in March 2021 in Washington, D.C.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from the Squad while being in Congress?

Through all the criticism, adversity, and misinformation, just continue doing the work.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve watched/read/listened to during quarantine?

Married at First Sight.

What’s the most surprising thing someone has said to you in Congress?

That I wouldn’t get my first paycheck or health insurance until Feb. 1.

If you had to host a dinner party for the members of Congress, what would you serve?

Soul food with St. Louis BBQ.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed. Listen to the full conversation here.