Stephanie Says

White Women –

While many of you are upset with the outcome of the election, Black women are suffering more deeply than you will ever imagine.

This pain has many roots, but betrayal may be the most profound of them.

We had hoped and prayed and believed that this country would, at long last, do the right thing by us, and we gave our everything to help America get it right this time. And, in return white America not only slapped us in the face, they made it very clear that we don’t matter and never did.

And, as has happened so often in the past, that assault was made possible by a majority of white women, who locked arms with white men, forging a united and unstoppable force that went straight for our throats, hearts, guts, and kneecaps. And as also has so often been the case in the past, they didn’t miss their aim.

And, no, please do NOT “not all white women” us today or any time soon. You will not like the response, but you will deserve it. Because if this doesn’t apply to you, it doesn’t apply to you, and today is not the day to circle your wagons to protect and deflect blame from the white women it does apply to.

And don’t even THINK about pointing fingers at men of color. Our Black and brown men did not betray us. White women did.

For all the Chucks and pearls and chirpy “I know the assignment!”, in the end, y’all didn’t move the needle one bit.

We begged you to go get your fellow white women, and we showed you how to do it, telling you it would take more than sympathetic hand-holding and gentle words, and trying to bond over cheese plates to shake them out of their racist voting patterns. It required, at the very least, some uncomfortable conversations and difficult choices.

But many of you told us we were too angry, and pushy, and demanding, and insisted that you knew best how to do this. You couldn’t bring yourself to provoke any rude awakenings among your fellow white women, because God forbid you be rude. That might make the next book club meeting just too awkward and you can’t let politics get in the way of friendship.

And then Black women gave you the choice on a silver platter, breaking our necks to present the most perfect candidate of all time, a woman many of you had openly smeared and dismissed until she performed so adeptly that only the most craven among us could claim she was anything other than exquisite.

And still, she wasn’t good enough for the majority of you.

A whole lot of you said you were with us and then went into the voting booth and, no matter what you said to our faces, willingly gave the power of the universe to a white supremacist who hates us. Because you can’t convince me that the 52 percent of white women who joined with 59 percent of white men to shove white supremacy down our throats is made up only of “those women” somewhere “over there.” Plenty of them are right here in our midst. The problem is that we can’t tell which ones they are, which smiling neighbor or acquaintance knowingly used her political power to return an authoritarian racist to power and cement white supremacy into the nation for at least another generation. It’s like being surrounded by zombies.

So, today and for the foreseeable future, do not be surprised or offended if the Black women you know are disgusted and angry with you and look at you with distrust and fear. Because you may think you understood the assignment, but a tragic and unforgiveable too many of you failed miserably.

As we head into the final days of the 2024 presidential campaign, I am filled with cheerful excitement, because every minute and every day, I feel more and more confident that Vice President Kamala Harris is going to win and win big.

I actually have no idea how the election will turn out. I’m not a pollster and I’m not an analyst. I just feel it in my bones. And my bones rarely fail me.

Sure, my bones and I could be wrong this time. Instead of my heart bursting with happiness as it did on Election Night 2008, it could sink into the darkest pit of my stomach, as it did in 2016. But I don’t believe that will happen this year, and even if it does, what good would it do to expect it to?

We can either be miserable or we can be joyful. But misery serves absolutely no purpose other than to make us miserable. After all, if the country loses its mind, its way and its democracy this week, anticipatory grief will not make it any easier.

And if we prove we’re indeed the country I believe we are – a nation that will dig deep, reach high, and embrace the future promised us by the brilliant, brave, steely, light-filled warrior-servant asking us to help her help us save its soul – how sad to have wasted so much time and energy dwelling in darkness when we could have been enjoying the sparkle.

On the other hand, optimism has no downside. If we’re optimistic now and then the worst happens – and again, I don’t think it will – at least we savored the last, sweet dregs of innocent bliss before the poison washes over us.

I’m not giving in to – or even entertaining – despair because it’s toxic and contagious and ain’t nobody got time for that.

We need to devote every ounce of energy and every grain of time we have to helping Kamala Harris bring this victory home.

I’m choosing hope. I’m embracing joy. I’m sprinting toward the light at the finish line.

Because if we stay focused and positive, and keep our eyes on the bright horizon, as we do the hard, good work MVP is encouraging us to do, WE WILL WIN!

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney is getting a lot of well-deserved kudos for so wholeheartedly endorsing Kamala Harris.

But lost in most of this praise is any recognition of the role that Vice President Kamala Harris played in this.

I can’t even wrap my head around the degree and depth of sensitivity, negotiating expertise, political savvy, and interpersonal skills that went into Kamala Harris successfully cajoling Cheney into not just endorsing her, but appearing with her, and agreeing to hit the campaign trail on her behalf. (and getting her father to endorse, to boot). That didn’t just happen because Cheney woke up last week and decided to endorse Harris. And Harris wasn’t some potted plant passively waiting for it all to happen.

She MADE it happen.

And it’s not just about Cheney. Kamala Harris has somehow managed to pull together a coalition of Republicans who, in the past, would NEVER have voted for a Democrat, especially a progressive Black woman. It’s one thing to tell people not to vote for Trump. But Harris has managed to convince a wide array of Republicans to stand on the rooftops and tell the world to vote for HER. This isn’t happening only because Trump is just so bad. It’s also happening because Harris is just that good.

That is some badass politics Harris is playing.

So I am here to give Vice President Kamala Harris the love and respect and salutes she deserves for pulling off this historical political feat and for doing it as she does everything – with skill, grace and genius.

Brava Madam Vice President. Brava!

His bar was as low as they could get it without burying it underground. He didn’t even need to step over it – all he had to do was shuffle across it and he’d have been home free.

But he tripped over it anyway, then fell on his face, knocked out a couple of teeth, swallowed a mouthful of dirt, ripped his pants and then wet them, skinned both knees and inexplicably lost two pairs of shoes.

On the other hand, her bar was somewhere up in the trees and a lot of people weren’t sure she could even see it, much less clear it.

But clear it she did. She ran headlong toward it in a swift, fierce, fearless run, and sailed over it in one graceful, ballerina-worthy leap, and with a gracious smile, floated high over the hapless, grunting lump barely visible struggling helplessly to haul himself out of the pile of leaves he had somehow managed to fall into, and nailed the landing, with a wink, a confident bob of her head, and a charming but leader-like chuckle, every hair still perfectly in place, because, after all, she is still a woman and, as such, must always remain ladylike and attractive.

And then she walked away like a boss.

Despite the gleeful chatter in some quarters, Donald Trump’s ugly, misogynoir-soaked performance today at the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference is not a laughing matter,

Trump didn’t fall on his face as some seem to think. He accomplished exactly what he went in there to do: draw the spotlight away from Vice President Kamala Harris and back to himself by attacking, insulting, and demeaning Black Americans, in general, and Black women in particular.

He did not do this “interview” to gain any Black votes. He’s not interested in our votes.

His purpose was to show white people that he’s not afraid of us and that he is willing to come into our spaces – in this case, by invitation – and disrespect us … and do it unashamedly.

In other words, he was just showing off. And, inexplicably, NABJ gave him the stage.

NABJ should never have invited him. Period.

But once they did, they should have ensured that their members, the Black community, the public at large and the three Black women on stage with him were not subjected to his vitriolic racism and sexism, lies and gish galloping.

And as soon as he began hurling insults – which unsurprisingly, occurred the second he opened his mouth – they should have shut him down on the spot, declared the interview over, and shown him to the exit.

I don’t care how bad he looked, I don’t care how many votes he lost, I don’t care how many votes Vice President Harris may have gained as a result of this debacle. There was nothing good or funny about any of this.

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster ride for many of us. But right now, we are on the rise.

Make no mistake. It is not an accident that in the last 24 hours, virtually every major Democratic figure, including Nancy Pelosi, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, and such purported potential rivals as Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, West Moore, Josh Shapiro, and Roy Cooper have coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris.

The first impetus, of course, was President Biden’s prompt, full-throated, and skillfully-executed endorsement of Harris as the nominee.

The second, without question, was the overwhelming, powerful, and inspirational show of support for Harris from Black women across the country.

Black women had the most invested in Joe Biden and fought the hardest for him. So his withdrawal from the race was probably more devastating to us than any other demographic.

And we felt it. Profoundly. I certainly did. It literally knocked me to my knees and every sister I’ve talked to had a similarly visceral reaction.

And we grieved … deeply … for about 10 minutes.

And then we got up ourselves up, brushed ourselves off, and got back to work. No whining. No handwringing. No what coulda shoulda beens.

And then, a few hours later, 44,000 of Black women – not a typo – gathered on a historic call strategizing, mobilizing, organizing.

And we put our money where our mouths are. In just an hour, Black women in the call had raised $1.5 million, providing a foundation for the nearly record-breaking $60 million the Harris campaign raised immediately after the announcement.

It is obvious that the impenetrable wall of support Black women built immediately built is, second only to Biden’s endorsement, the reason that today Kamala Harris has the wind at her back. She stepped up onto that wall, took a giant leap, and is now soaring into history. And we are going to continue to embrace, surround, protect and propel her every inch of the way. Because our vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is not only tan, but she is tested and ready for this challenge.

I am so proud of what we have done and are going to do. And I urge all of my fellow Democrats, whatever your race, to look at what Black women did yesterday, and then follow our lead.

Because when Black women lead, we ALL win.

I wrote this piece in August 2020, after Joe Biden put Democrats on notice that he has Kamala Harris’ back and he expected all of us to, as well.

Now is a good time to think about this again.

HE’S GOT HER BACK

When I was a young lawyer in a large law firm, the first African-American to work there, I was assigned to handle a workers compensation case for a corporate client. The employee had a strong case but the company president was adamant about fighting it, so I represented the company in its hearing before the Bureau of Workers Compensation.

After the Bureau ruled (correctly) for the employee, I returned to the office to call the client, give him the news and discuss a possible appeal.

When I told him of the decision, the company president (who had never laid eyes on me) blew up and yelled into my ear, “That guy is a dirty lying NIGGER!” I was stunned. “Excuse me?” I stammered. “He’s a dirty lying NIGGER! And everybody at the Bureau is a bunch of NIGGERR lovers. I hope they all end up with NIGGER grandchildren!”

I felt like I had been punched in the chest and I didn’t know what to do. So I put him on hold and just sat there for a minute, heart pounding, as I tried to swallow and catch my breath.

Then I told myself, “Just get him off the phone, tell the firm and let them handle it.” So I picked up the phone, told him I needed to call him back and clicked off. I went upstairs to the office of the senior partner responsible for the client where, shaking and nearly in tears, I told him what happened.

He looked at me for a few seconds, then leaned back in his chair and burst out laughing.

“That guy! He’s such an old curmudgeon. Just last week, he had Bob (another partner) all worked up by giving him the business about being an Ivy Leaguer! That’s just what he does.”

Stunned, I tried to explain to him that the client hadn’t made fun of where I attended college. That this was much different.

“Don’t let it get to you kid. It’s not a big deal. You need grow a thicker skin.”

I left his office and returned to my desk, where I sat not knowing what to do next. A few minutes later, the partner came to my office.

“Oh, good, I thought. He’s figured out he needs to do something ….”

But no. He was there to get the client’s file to give to another associate to handle. “It will probably be uncomfortable for you to work with him now,” he said sympathetically, as if he was doing me a big favor by taking me off of the case.

I asked him if he was going to tell the client why a different lawyer would be working with him, hoping that he planned to stand up for me and tell the client he had insulted one of the firm’s associates.

“No. He’s old and stuck in his ways. There’s no point in embarrassing him …” And he walked out, leaving me feeling alone, unprotected and unvalued.

Most people of color, women, and, especially women of color have surely and on more than one occasion, felt exactly as I did in that moment. It’s a common experience to find ourselves attacked by outsiders and then betrayed by the people who should stick up for us but instead just shrug and tell us WE’RE making too big a deal of the whole thing.

That’s why it was such a BFD yesterday when Joe Biden warned Trump and his henchmen that if they come for Kamala Harris, they’ll have to deal with him.

“Is anyone surprised Donald Trump has a problem with a strong woman? And we know that more is to come,” he said.”So let’s be clear … Kamala Harris has had your back – and now, we have to have her back. She’s going to stand with me in this campaign, and all of us are going to stand up for her.”

When I heard those words, I nearly cried with joy and relief. So many women and minorities have had to stand alone in the face of all manner of attack without any support from the people who should be standing by our sides.

But that’s not going to happen to Kamala. Yes, she’s going to be attacked, probably worse than any woman in political history, except perhaps Hillary Clinton (who also got little support from people who should have stood up for her). It’s already started. But this time, she won’t be alone. Joe Biden has put everyone on notice that not only does he have Kamala’s back, but he expects the entire party to circle the wagons around her. He essentially said for all to hear, “She’s with US. She IS us. So if you come for her, you’d better be prepared for a fight.” And that’s a fight they do not want to have.

As VP, Joe Biden showed himself to be valued and loyal partner to America’s first black president, a younger man whom he was willing to stand behind and support unwaveringly. As a presidential candidate, he showed himself to be a champion, who learned and grew and reached out to a diverse electorate. In selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate, he showed himself to be a politically savvy, bold and sensitive leader, paying it forward and helping to dismantle yet another barrier.

And yesterday, when he put the world on notice that he has Kamala’s back and expects the rest of us to have her back, as well, Joe Biden proved himself to be an ally in the truest sense of the word, willing to wield his privilege for the greatest good.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote about days gone by when “the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”

Dr. King’s perfect distinction can be applied today in our politics.

Too many people in the progressive community are behaving like thermometers, looking at polls, gauging popular opinion, listening to what “they are saying,” etc. and treating this information, not as useful and changeable data points for shaping messaging and strategy (which they surely are), but as static and unalterable immutable facts that will determine all that comes next. And based on that, they are now ready to throw in the towel and kick our staunchest allies to the curb in hopes of finding someone else they believe is more in line with the atmosphere as they assess it to be in this immediate moment.

But true activists know that licking your finger and holding it up to the wind is not activism.

Concluding that people will always think a certain way because they think that way todsy is not activism.

Deciding you can’t win a fight because you’re not winning it now is not activism.

Activism means staying in a battle even when, in this exact time and space, we are not ahead.

Activism means not just looking at what is, but determining what will be.

Activists don’t simply measure the temperature. We change the climate.

So please, stop listening to the polls and pundits and “insiders” and what someone told you “people are saying,” and then trying to convince us we’ve lost a fight that hasn’t even really begun.

We don’t need any more thermometers – there are far too many folks giving us minute-by-minute and (and more often than not, inaccurate) weather reports. We need thermostats working for change. And it will be the thermostats – the true activists – who will make the difference this November and beyond.

Which one will you be?

Basking in the afterglow of President Joe Biden’s stellar press conference last night, I clicked on Morning Joe at dawn to check out what they were saying about President Biden’s press conference.

It seemed to start off ok.

In the lead-in, co-host Willie Geist noted that “He did have some gaffes, but he also showed a command of key issues, particularly on foreign policy.”

Kind of a half-assed, obviously begrudging admission that Biden did well – even though we could have done without it being couched in a gratuitous observation that, like every other human being on earth, Biden isn’t perfect. But alright.

Then, in the next breath, Geist said:

“But behind the scenes, though, advisors and close allies are said to be making the case for why he should step aside”

As he spoke, a graphic of a New York Times headline blaring “Biden advisors weigh how to convince him to end his campaign” floated on the screen.

Click.

“Behind the scenes advisors are said to be” is Mean Girl Telephone Game speak for “We heard that someone who isn’t behind the scenes told somebody what they claim is happening in rooms they aren’t in, but we’re not telling you who said it or who they said it about.”

In other words, once again, we’re being played.

Remember when the press defended their non-stop Biden Doom Loop as completely beyond their control, because it was all Biden’s fault, generated solely by a bad debate performance, but all the president needed to do was to show them he’s up to the job and they’d back off?

Remember “He needs to give a speech”?

He gave a speech. Meh

Then, “He needs to speak off the cuff without a teleprompter.”

He spoke off the cuff without a teleprompter, repeatedly, nearly every day, including a beautiful, heartfelt remarks at a meeting of national union leaders that you probably never even saw if you even heard about it. Because it earned nothing but crickets from the chattering class, who simply ignored it.

And then: “He needs to give a press conference.”

And boy, did he give a press conference, delivering a performance that even his most fervent media detractors had to reluctantly admit was a master class in “showing a command of key issues.”

But, of course, that wasn’t good enough for the “just prove to us you’re up to the job and we’ll leave you alone” crowd, either.

Because they were lying. Again.

Let’s be real. The media are NEVER going to let up on President Biden, no matter what he says or what does.

Biden could have recited Shakespeare’s sonnets from memory while doing one-handed push-ups last night, and the media would have disqualified him for using the wrong arm.

And even if Biden were to step down today, as the media elite are not just demanding, but irrresponsibly trying to force him to do (not your job, guys), they would simply shift their focus to his replacement, expertly sniff out the softest spot on their underbelly, and plunge their fangs into it …

And without even coming up for air, they would breathlessly proclaim:

DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY!

BUYER’S REGRET IN THE DEMOCRATIC CAMP!

INSIDERS TURN ON MAGICAL SPARKLE PONY: SOURCES LAMENT THAT MSP “IS NO JOE BIDEN!”

I am so proud of President Biden and Vice President Harris and the Democrats who will actually decide who are nominees are, for refusing to play Charlie Brown to the political Lucys trying to lure us to the party’s and country’s demise with promises to play fair this time.

Nope. We’re not going to try to kick that football only to have it snatched away and find ourselves flat on our backs while the Republicans climb over us and stumble through the goalposts their media blockers and tacklers are dragging around the field.

Because this isn’t a cartoon and it isn’t a game. This is a battle for our country’s life and soul. And we’re not going to let up just because certain shameless “journalists” tell us some nameless, spineless “advisors” want us to.

Keep fighting, y’all. Joe and Kamala have got this … and we’ve got them.

I’m going to speak honestly to my white Democratic sisters, even though I know it may ruffle some feathers:

An awful lot of white women have lately been demanding that our party erase the votes of tens of millions of people and kick President Biden to the curb. These erased votes include the votes of millions of Black Americans who are solidly behind Joe Biden and will not allow our voices to be silenced to satisfy the wishes of a small, overwhelmingly white sliver of unreliable Independents and shaky Democrats not guaranteed to vote Democratic, regardless what we do.

And many of the women making this demand also claim they want Biden to be replaced by Kamala Harris and promise they will wholeheartedly support her if this happens. But while Vice President Harris is the ONLY rational and acceptable choice to step in for Biden should he decide not to run, I am not swayed by this promise at all.

To paraphrase James Baldwin, We don’t believe what you say because we see what you do.

White women voters have proven time and again to be undependable allies and the weakest link in the electoral chain. As a result, I don’t trust many of them any further than I can throw them.

Not only have they been the biggest drag on Democrats, a whole lot of white women have spent a whole lot of time and effort in the last 3 and 1/2 years telling us how much they don’t like Kamala Harris. And their disdain is usually based on the same types of illusory criticisms always lobbed at Black women who enter spaces previously owned exclusively by white people – Not based on our performance, but on abstractions like “She doesn’t exude leadership,” “Her voice is annoying,” “She just rubs me the wrong way” and, of course “People don’t like her.”

And based on their past and current behavior, I don’t trust a critical mass of white women to stand behind Kamala Harris as our nominee any more than they have stood behind her as vice president, no matter what they’re saying now.

Let’s be real. A majority of white women couldn’t even vote for a white woman in 2016. And a majority of white women voted against the Black woman who ran for Georgia governor in 2018. And let’s not forget that a majority of white women have continued to vote for extremist Republican candidates even after the Dobbs decision.

But now we’re supposed to believe that white women will suddenly wake up, wise up, and then lift up and carry Kamala Harris into the White House this time around?

We can’t believe what you say because we see what you do

Black voters have absolutely no good reason to trust white women Democrats to vote en masse for, much less fight for, Kamala Harris should the Democratic Party lose its collective mind and force Joe Biden off the ticket.

So, you’ll have to understand why I and many other Black women are giving the side-eye to white women who demand that Biden be jettisoned and Kamala Harris take his place. Because, we don’t trust them to stand with us and with her any more than they have done up until now – and for good reason.

But this need not be a permanent problem. Trust can be earned.

So I say to my white Democratic sisters, if you want to start earning our trust, we’re gonna need you to do a few things:

First, we need you to stop talking at us and start listening to us.

And we need you to stop trying to eradicate our vote. We voted – along with tens of millions of other Democrats – for Joe Biden to be the Democratic presidential nominee and for Kamala Harris to be his running made. They are our standard bearers. That’s not going to change. So let it go.

Then we’ll need you to work with us – and work at least half as hard as we will – to ensure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get the 270 electoral votes they need to win reelection.

And after Biden and Harris win and enter their second term, we’re going to need you to stop undermining and dismissing the Vice President, and instead, support her, lift her up, and treat her with the respect she has earned and deserves.

Once you do all those things, we can talk about how we can work together in 2028 to continue the progress we have made together.

But, in the meantime, please don’t be surprised or resentful that we don’t believe your promises – because up until now, you have given us no reason to.

But you have plenty of opportunity to change that.

And I believe you can.

Let’s go!