Oftentimes, Black lives are minimized to accommodate political agendas. Black people serve as the foundation of the Democratic Party with Black women as its backbone. 92% of Black women voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester made history on Election Night. The two will be the first Black women to simultaneously serve in the Senate. Change occurred on November 5 and Black women are responsible for it.
However, the life of a Black woman does not start and end on Election Day. Like the Black women who have come before us, it is our duty to live. It is not our duty to save the Democratic Party, the United States, or the world. It is our duty to invest and support our communities, to serve as examples and role models to the Black women, girls, and femmes who will come after us. Life and the pursuit of living is not dependent on who resides in the Oval Office. Black women will continue to live as we have always done. The challenge is upon us to determine what life looks like.
Despair and sorrow are a part of life. There is no guarantee that we will be free from this pain. Or that another voting bloc will fail us. Grief is synonymous with life. However, there is a need for us to be in community with one another. It is on us to create and foster an environment of change. A reality that honors and values the lives of Black women, regardless of political outcomes.
As people who have been consistently othered and pushed to the margins, as Black women have for generations, it is justifiable to feel anger, to feel rage, to distance oneself from the political system. The two party system was not created with the intentions of Black women in mind. And despite any historic gains, the system will continue to subject those who have been othered to intense amounts of violence and harm.
It is not a system rooted in equity or equality, because there is always someone who will experience the brute of our decisions. Whether abroad or within the United States, people of color, immigrants, queer and trans folks, and more communities will have to deal with the consequences of the 2024 presidential election. Now is not the time to shame or say an individual or community is deserving of harm and violence, because of their decision to not participate in the election or if their state of residence voted for Trump. The enemy has always been and will continue to be white supremacy.
But what if Black women elected to transmute those feelings into a collective good? We are still needed. There are babies to be born and crops to be planted. Once the emotions have settled and the pain is gone, we will still be here.
It is time to find one thing in your community that brings you joy, and start from there. Because life is for the living and Black women are not dead.