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!