In this op-ed, Niya Doyle explains why she wants Black women to be selfish during the second Trump administration.
Four years ago, at the height of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, I stood on stage in front of hundreds at Greeley Park in Nashua, New Hampshire. In one of the whitest states in the country, I spoke of feeling like an outsider in my hometown. I recalled my experiences of racism being the only Black girl in my classrooms, feeling isolated and unwelcome by classmates, and facing microaggressions from my own teachers. Back then I had hope America would have a sincere racial reckoning with its own history. Back then I thought I truly stood in solidarity with my white peers.
Today I feel betrayed.
Donald Trump resoundingly won the 2024 presidential election, including the popular vote. While Trump made gains with Hispanic men and women, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign strategy focused on capturing the suburban, highly educated, and moderate vote — mostly from white women. If the insurrection on January 6, 2021, wasn’t enough to sway voters, then surely the 2022 Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that protected the right to abortion and was overturned, would turn out women for Harris in droves. None of it was enough. Instead, Trump drew voters that many didn't expect him to get. The one demographic that stayed nearly static in their Democratic vote? Black women.
Black women have been the most reliable and consistent voting block for the Democratic Party since the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. We’re also among the most politically active. We’re activists, organizers, and caretakers of the marginalized, disabled, and poor because we know that a win for the most disadvantaged in society is also a win for us. As one of the most vulnerable, least protected groups in America, Black women stand at the intersection of race and gender — and our position is uniquely burdened by the patriarchy and the current of anti-Blackness in this country. Days after the election, Black women across the country are feeling the same thing: despair and defeat.
“I’m very worried,” says Natasha White, a 34-year-old health care worker in Ohio. “What worries me most is that the country has leaned very far right with discriminatory ideals. [The country] seems to have regressed with Trump.”
Like many Black women, White expresses feeling exhausted post-election. A Harris presidency would have been a historic victory for racial and gender progress. It wouldn't have solved all the racism and sexism in this country, but at the very least it could have signaled that — after a rightward swing following the Obama era — America has progressed from its white supremacist and patriarchal roots. It would have meant that Black women are worthy and qualified to hold the most powerful position in the world. Instead, we are not only mourning the loss of what could have been, but once again faced with the undeniable fact that Black women have to work twice or perhaps quadruply as hard to prove our worth — even if the competition has been found liable of sexual abuse and is a convicted felon.
I came of age at the height of girlboss feminism, but it’s clear to me that modern feminism has neither acknowledged the contribution that Black women have made to feminist movements, nor addressed the unique challenges we face. How can I reach the same economic prosperity as my white counterparts when Black women, on average, are paid 12% less annually than white women? How can I make choices about my body when 57% of Black women between the ages of 15 and 49 live in a state where abortion access is banned or severely limited? How can I be a “girl’s girl” when it’s not guaranteed that my support will be reciprocated, as more than half of white women seemingly voted away their rights in this election?
“As Black women, we have been screaming for centuries for people to see us [as] human beings,” says Lauryn Bergert, a 24-year-old clinical psychology doctoral student and undergraduate psychology professor at Roosevelt University. “We have been on the front lines for every single movement, but it feels like people continue to fail to show up for us.”
Above all, perhaps the biggest rub is that support for Black women seems to be transactional, provided only when all women are collectively suffering under the weight of patriarchal America. Black women cannot be allies for all when our allies are none.
The bells of modern feminism ring hollow in 2024. A movement still largely dominated by and for the benefit of white women is not effective feminism. No matter how many times you’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale or The Bell Jar, a movement cannot achieve equality for all unless it takes into account various points of oppression and injustice across all types of women. Intersectionality, a term coined by Black critical race scholar and advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, examines identities from gender to race, class, religion, disability, and sexual orientation to create a framework that addresses all of these overlapping issues. Intersectionality is the solution to create a system of equity and justice for all women, not just certain types of women.
But how can we keep begging for intersectionality when we're consistently ignored and left behind? I’m not advocating that Black women stop caring or stop resisting, but I do think it's time that we start being selfish. We need to allow ourselves the time to grieve. To feel angry.
“I know as the days go by I will get my fighting spirit back, but right now I am sad. Right now I am exhausted…." Bergert aptly puts it. "I know there is still rest in resistance, and I am free to feel every single feeling related to this election and the long history that comes with this country.”
For the time being, we need to put ourselves first. We need to treat ourselves and our sisters, aunties, grandmothers, and mothers with the same love and care as we have for others. Now is the time to forge strong bonds with each other, strong enough to last us another four years under the Trump administration, because only we truly understand the pain and fatigue each of us has experienced being a Black woman in America.
As for everyone else, instead of buying blue friendship bracelets, I’m asking non-Black women to take real, discernible action. That could mean confronting bigoted family members and friends, or being an active member of a mutual aid group or community that supports Black women and other marginalized people. If you’re an ally, take the lessons learned from 2020 and apply them to real life. Spread the word. The more awareness and consciousness about systemic racism in this country, the better we can fight against laws and politicians that hurt all of us. Anti-Blackness is the bane of true progressive policies in America.
Black women have been doing the work to shape a better America since slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Today I ask Black women to take time to rest over these next four years.
