“The Barn” is about the murder of Emmett Till, and this report also highlights how that history was taught, ignored, or covered up:
What’s more, authors of color — particularly women of color — were far more likely to be banned compared with white authors. Authors of color wrote 39% of the banned books in our study. Women of color alone penned almost a quarter of them. That’s even though authors of color make up just 10% of U.S. authors and write less than 5% of the most popular books in the U.S.
This occurred here in VA! There has been no reporting at all about it that I have heard. Holy shit, man!
Gee, I wonder why…
Let’s be real — many white women are not friends or allies to Black women. They never have been. That’s the truth, plain and simple. And as Maya Angelou once said: “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”
Black women, we must believe what white women keep showing us.
On November 5, 53% of white women did what they’ve always done: voted for whiteness. I thought, foolishly, that the majority of white women might support Kamala Harris’s bid for the presidency. But no — they once again reminded us who they truly are.
So now Black women are being asked to show up on January 18 for another Women’s March to protest Donald Trump’s presidency. We’re supposed to stand shoulder to shoulder with white women and chant that we won’t go back.
Here’s a suggestion: Just say no.
I struggle with this one. Data agrees with the statement, and also does not:
Although women as a whole have historically voted for Democrats, white women have not. Instead, over the last 72 years, a plurality of white women have voted for the Democratic candidate only twice, in 1964 and 1996. On Tuesday, they once again went for Trump – just as they did in 2016 and 2020. But Harris made inroads with the group; she lost them by only 5 points, according to CNN. (In 2020, they broke for Trump by 11.) More surprisingly, Trump’s lead among white men also shrank, from 23 points in 2020 to 20 in 2024.
The Trump campaign leaned into targeting young men, as the former president publicly palled around with male YouTubers and podcasters, such as Joe Rogan, who make little space for women. This effort paid off: exit polling indicates that there was a canyon-wide 16-point gender gap between young men and women, which is an increase from 2020. While women between the ages of 18 and 29 preferred Harris 58% to 40%, their male peers chose Trump 56% to 42%. However, compared to his last run, Trump did better with both young men (41% of them voted for him four years ago) and young women (33% in 2020).
So, Il Douche actually lost some of his white woman vote (winning by 5% in '24 vs. 11% in '20), while gaining in the key younger women demographic (40% in '24 vs. 33% in '20.) I don’t know what to make of this pattern, other than racism sucks. But I also hate seeing a wedge driven between white women (47% of whom did, in fact, vote for Harris) and Black women. That can only benefit the fascists. Having said that, I also am a white guy, and fully understand that I have no say in this issue. I have seen us turn on each other rather than deal with the fascists after the '16 election, and would love to not see that again. But there is very real anger and betrayal to work through as well. Women who vote for Gilead puzzle me every bit as much as trans and gay folks who vote for their own extermination. I have no answers, folks, just desperately looking for hope.
Yeah, and white women should stop doing that. Beginning with listening more respectfully to black women.
Ultimately, who voted for whom isn’t really relevant this last election. That’s just scapegoating ( and probably distorted as well due to changes is the absolute numbers of votes). Talking about percentages misses the real story. What mattered this last election was who didn’t vote. That was the difference.
That’s more on us white women, though. Even if more of us voted against whiteness, the majority of us who vote still did. It’s not on Black women to fix us, it’s on us to fix us. I don’t know how to do that, but I know it needs to happen.
Yep.
I think it is…
I think it’s both. Both can be and are true.
I never said it was on Black women to fix anybody. It is not and cannot be on the oppressed to “fix” their oppressors. And honestly, as I said, I cannot say what anyone should do. I do feel horrible at seeing folks who should be on the same side sniping at each other. But, again, I also understand the degree of anger and betrayal that this election engendered, rightly so. I don’t know how to address it. I have my hands full with trying to get the white men around me to stop being assholes. I have no answers. I feel like I am watching the world burn.
That’s kind of my point, though… I have never seen Black women sniping at anyone… time and again, they show up for all the rest of us. And time and again, we all regularly fail Black women…
What I’m saying is that, mathematically, changes in demographic voting patterns from one election vs another is heavily dependent on how many people voted. When we’re talking about losing 7 million votes from one election to another, a change in demographic percentages has more to do with the change in total votes than an actual shift in voting behavior.
In other words, having a majority of white women voting for T**** might be the exact same number of white women voting for T**** as in 2020 but millions of white women not voting for Harris in 2024. Still painful, but it might not actually mean a demographic shift in who people are voting for but rather in voter participation.
From a forward-looking perspective, I don’t think trying to shift voters away from T**** is nearly as fruitful as getting voters to just get out and vote. That’s how he won this election - getting people to stay home, not convincing people to vote for him.
I think a lot of division comes down to differences in privilege and how having it causes some to be less empathetic to others. It’s rare to have an environment that truly sucks for everyone - a scenario in which if we don’t all help each other, we’ll all fall and be unable to recover. Having that privilege and risking it being diminished or erased to lift others up is something many are unwilling to do. That doesn’t seem to change whether that privilege comes from race, class, gender, or wealth.
I can only hope that it doesn’t take folks getting a heaping helping of what they’ve dished out to others to change hearts and minds. That’s partly because I wouldn’t wish those struggles on anyone else. It’s also because when things are bad for those with privilege, it’s always much worse for those without it.
In the words of my childhood: Dang…
