The election question persists

It is a difficult question to answer in the moment in a meaningful and thorough way. There are those who ask this question even though they are fully committed to misunderstanding us. Those who are looking for an argument, for a bit of sport. Then there are those who are genuinely interested in learning. The effort represented by this piece is for them.

Although I cannot speak for all of us, I can certainly provide my own perspective.

There is something so visceral about it.

Watching her excel under the scrutiny and remain unflinching through the grueling paces of campaigning for the highest office in the land. Watching her bite back the words while we all filled in the blanks during the only debate her opponent could stomach. Waiting with bated breath and wondering if our optimism will be rewarded or punished.

None of it is surprising. Not to us. Black women across this nation have not been surprised by the rollback of post-Floyd corporate DEI budgets. We haven’t been surprised by the advancements made by regressive policies on the state level, not in Iowa or elsewhere. We weren’t even surprised by the election of a dictionary definition fascist. Never surprised, just disappointed.

As my good friend Dr. C says, “Racism isn’t the shark, it’s the water.” We aren’t tourists who pop in and out of experiencing the rough side of advocacy work and then take off the pink cat hats and resume our identities as members of a demographic who can expect to receive equitable outcomes and the benefits of privilege. We live here.

Come every fourth autumn, there is a sudden desire for our voices to be heard. Thank God for those election cycles, sometimes they put our unaddressed issues on debate stages. Thank God for those election cycles, when we might be heard without having to burn something to the ground.

It is exhausting, however, to have to wait that long. Sometimes we can’t.

Despite the generations of disenfranchisement and every attempt to exclude us from the process, we remain the most consistent voting block in this nation. (Ever since we won the right to vote, in 1965.) We are not a monolith, and no one person can possibly speak for us all, but we speak collectively and with overwhelming consistency at the ballot box.

We vote for our health care and our freedom, we vote for our education and our right to pursue, we vote for those who are unhoused and underfed and strategically undervalued because we know that all too often we are overrepresented in those who get the short end of the stick. (But we vote for everyone else who does too.)

We do this while we outwork and outlearn and build wealth. We don’t change our perspectives on these issues based on how much we have personally accumulated. Perhaps it is attributable to cultural norms that prioritize extended family networks and that are not centered on the isolated nuclear unit. Perhaps it is summarized well by “it takes a village,” a statement now so familiar to American ears that we seem to have forgotten where it came from.

Some of us are loud in our efforts. We tell truths on stages and write pieces that incite enough anger to result in death threats by email and furious letters dropped on our editor’s desk without a return address. Some of us strive and strive for change only to be frustrated by a lack of appreciation and compensation and peace. We find ourselves having to justify our seat at tables with people who are less qualified than we are. Eventually, we seek more diverse pastures where we can at the very least enjoy some breathing room and stop reiterating our credentials.

When we watch this presidential election cycle unfold, we see our own experiences magnified and under unforgiving stage lights. We are cautiously optimistic that an overqualified, experienced, prepared graduate of HU (you KNOW!) will emerge victorious from a popularity contest with a babbling, felonious, indebted conservative think tank puppet.

But we remember that time we watched you choose the new hire who knew your sister instead of the Black applicant with 10 years experience and more education because the former “fit the culture” better. So we might be disappointed … but never surprised.