This election is an unfortunate macrocosm of what Black women experience each day across industries: a fundamental lack of trust to lead.
In the weeks since the election, pundits from every major news network to your retired uncle in Omaha have shared their hot takes on why Kamala Harris lost. The Democratic Party pandered to the center, or not enough. Republicans are better at articulating a villain, while Dems rely too much on ephemeral ideas like hope and belief. I’m not here to tell you what the singular reason is—because the reality is that the factors that led to her loss are multi-dimensional, and more than one thing can be true at the same time.
As a Black woman at the head of Georgia’s voter turnout effort, which resulted in a several 100,000 increase in voters (despite an ongoing effort by conservative politicians to suppress turnout in our state), I can tell you one tired trope many are falling back on to explain the second rise of Donald Trump that simply does not hold water: economic anxiety.
Black people are not just experiencing the same economy as everyone else, but oftentimes one that is far worse. … Black people’s votes compared to their relative financial instability shows that economic angst is not a viable reason for why Trump won over the majority of white voters.
This argument’s enduring longevity (we’ve been hearing it since the day after the 2016 election) is perplexing because it is so easy to disprove. Black voters, particularly Black women, showed up in force for Harris—marking her two biggest groups of supporters by race and gender. Ninety-two percent of Black women voted for her, more than showed up for Joe Biden.
This support is despite the fact that Black people are not just experiencing the same economy as everyone else, but oftentimes one that is far worse. The Black unemployment rate is higher than any other racial group despite Black women having higher labor force participation than any other group of women. Economist Michelle Holder describes the “double gap” that Black women face with both their race and gender pushing down equitable pay, estimating that Black women workers lose out on a combined $50 billion a year in wages due to this undercompensation.
Black people’s votes compared to their relative financial instability shows that economic angst is not a viable reason for why Trump won over the majority of white voters. Economic indicators also underscore the fragility of this argument, with inflation down to pre-pandemic levels and consumer confidence spiking.
This lack of evidence to support “the economy is everything” line of thinking leads us to the need to confront what many of us would rather ignore. As James Baldwin wrote in his 1962 essay about this country’s long history of hiding from its truths: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” More than half a century later, it is long past time for us to face the fact that racism—specifically anti-Blackness—and sexism are at the base of the many other reasons Harris was unable to triumph in this election.
Trump’s own supporters have essentially told us this, and it is our job to believe them. A number of studies on his first win, which reductive analyses also blamed on the economy, debunk the theory that the mostly-white voters who drove him to victory were worried about their bank accounts. Instead, they were worried about their loss of status; particularly, ceding any advantage they enjoy due to their race and class to those they view as eroding their “culture”—a dog whistle for immigrants and refugees, most of whom are people of color. It’s hardly shocking then that less than a decade later, these same concerns would exist and be even more pointedly directed toward a candidate with two immigrant Black and Brown parents.
And—this point is one we as a country must absorb to ever make progress—sexism and racism, in particular anti-Blackness, are not exclusive to white people. A core function of white supremacy and patriarchal thought is that both deploy a panopticon effect, in which many emulate the behaviors of their oppressors.
[Harris] laid out an actual opportunity agenda for building wealth and leadership … No candidate, including Barack Obama, has ever put forward such a specific plan for the betterment of Black men.
I saw this firsthand in the lead-up to Election Day, appearing on a podcast with an Afro-Latino man who complained Harris was not listening to or representing Black men and rather only catering to the needs of the LGBTQ community. This not only reflects a problematic bigotry toward gay and trans community members that has emerged stronger in the wake of Trump’s first presidency, but a fundamental ignorance of Harris’ platform. Not only did she offer a raft of economic policies for poor and middle-class Americans to tackle everything from the cost of having a baby to grocery store bills, but she laid out an actual opportunity agenda for building wealth and leadership among Black men that included 1 million forgivable loans and a health initiative to tackle diseases that disproportionately affect them. No candidate, including Barack Obama, has ever put forward such a specific plan for the betterment of Black men.
Meanwhile, Trump offered nothing in the way of particulars for Black men and vague “concepts of a plan” for everyone else. It is misguided at best to not grasp the fact that many in this country refuse to even acknowledge the ideas of a Black and Brown woman while simultaneously trusting their futures to a white man who doesn’t even offer them the respect of delivering a single, concrete economic proposal.
This election is an unfortunate macrocosm of what Black women experience each day across industries, including mine: a fundamental lack of trust to lead. To finally break free of the shackles of sexism and racism that stymie our ability to achieve lasting progress in this country, we must all confront and recognize anti-blackness and misogyny in not just our elections; but our everyday lives.
Let this be a moment where we did not hide behind the shield of weak arguments to cover up our ugly flaws, but instead brought them to the light to heal. We have four years of introspection and growth to chart a new path in which we are actually a people who can trust in the vision and leadership of a Black woman. Let’s start today.
