Yo, Miss! (No. 57)
Dear America: You Broke My Heart (Again), But I'm Not Giving Up
When the U.S. Constitution was ratified, only white men with property could vote.
Then, in 1820 voting rights were expanded to most white men regardless of property ownership, often referred to as “universal manhood suffrage”
Even though the 15th amendment expanded voting rights to Black men in 1869, it was not until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 when Black people could actually vote. The act outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.
Women could not vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified.
Barack Obama was the fifth Black senator in American history. Kamala Harris was the tenth Black senator in American History. In total, there have only been twelve Black senators in American history.
In our nearly 250 year history, progress has not been speedy. The American Empire/Experiment was built on the genocide of indigenous people, race-based chattel slavery, racism and misogyny.
We have only had one Black president and we have never had a female president.
So we should not be surprised that even in 2024 Americans did not vote for Kamala Harris to be the 47th President of the United States.
I am still heartbroken and filled with rage over the outcome of the 2024 Election.
Even with my knowledge about our nation’s history, I truly believed that we were finally ready to elect Kamala Harris as President.
I used to think that there were more of us than the Trump supporters.
I thought there were more of us than those who wanted to go back in time.
I thought there were more of us than those who wanted to continue to uphold the patriarchy and white supremacy.
I thought there were more of us than those who would vote for a felon, rapist, con man, sexual abuser, twice-impeached former President and election denying insurrectionist.
I was wrong.
It was an honor of my lifetime to get to work on VP Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign as a content creator.
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She led a joyful campaign and offered concrete plans that would have helped so many Americans.
She was also one of the most qualified presidential candidates ever.
Our founding fathers certainly did not envision her when they wrote the U.S. Constitution. However, she is a proud patriot who would have been an incredible president. She would have put country above party and been a leader for all Americans.
But, the majority of Americans were still not ready to elect a woman, a Black woman, as President of the United States.
Some pundits keep saying it was “economic anxiety” that decided the race. They said the same thing after the 2016 election. Here are my thoughts on that:
I am not sure if I will even see a female president in my lifetime now. I am not even sure if there will still be elections now that these wannabe authoritarians and modern-day monarchists will soon descend upon the White House.
In her speech conceding the election, Harris reminded us that this is not a time to throw up our hands. It is a time to roll up our sleeves. I’m still sick and heartbroken to the core. Terrified of what is about to happen. But, I’m not going anywhere. This is the time when we start building up our communities and people power.
Project 2025 is coming but we already know the plan. We won’t roll over to their fascist designs. We won’t throw up our hands. We will roll up our sleeves and do our best to keep each other safe.
We are not going back, not without a fight.
Thank you for saying it: Most Americans did not want a woman as president. Be it emasculation or female jealousy, in my opinion THAT is what this election was about. And that is why I am having such a difficult time.
I voted for Harris. Having said that, I believe that the state of the economy is a legitimate concern for many. My diabetic father has been struggling to afford groceries that are compatible with his condition, and the only policy issue he ever heard Harris talk about was abortion. Harris made the same mistake here that Hillary Clinton made in Pennsylvania way back when. Pennsylvania's coal miners didn't have a clear sense that Clinton understood or cared about their problems. In the same vein, while the restoration of Roe would restore its benefits to women and society as a whole, abortion protections for women don't help my father treat the life threatening illness he lives with. Trump laid out his rationale for tariffs, getting the law of supply and demand exactly backwards as he talked, but that was more than my father ever heard from Harris on the subject. My father is seventy years old. Abortion is going to be a back burner issue for him compared to his more immediate problems. He never got the sense that Harris understood or cared about the issues that affect him most. I am horrified that Trump won, but misogyny isn't entirely to blame here.