Vote…Now: The Strong Voting Block of African American Women

Ninety-six percent of all black women voted for Hillary Clinton. That is 9.6 of black women out of 10 black women who voted for Hillary Clinton. You would have to get 20 black women together to find 1 black woman who voted for Donald Trump. For me, I cannot let this number go because this is the highest number of black women who supported any candidate in the general election. Also, black women were the strongest voting block for Hillary Clinton.

Eighty-nine percent of all black men voted for Hillary Clinton. Yes, this is the second biggest voting block for Hillary Clinton, but it is the furthest distance black women and black men have been when voting for a presidential candidate in the general election.

We need to pause and think about how strong African American men came out to support Hillary Clinton. After that has resonated, begin to think about only 54% of white women voted for Hillary Clinton. That is 5.4 of white women out of every 10 white women voted for Hillary Clinton. In fact, it is closer to 1 out of every 2 white women voted for Hillary Clinton. This means that after listening to Donald Trump call a white woman “fat” and “unattractive” and bragging about sexually assaulting a white woman because he is rich, so she will oblige, these white women still thought that Donald Trump was an acceptable candidate. In fact, Donald Trump eventually stated that he would criminalize women’s decisions they would make on their own reproductive health. Yet and still, they went to the polls and close the curtain and voted for Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton to be president.

Let’s pause and think about this for a moment. I will wait.

For a year, I have been screaming and yelling these numbers because it is mind blowing. It is mind blowing how far distant Black Women voters are away from White Women voters. It is stunning. I can explain how Hillary Clinton’s platform of having a full day Kindergarten, mandatory Pre-K, equal pay, universal healthcare, and a larger subsidy for state college all help Black Women in greater numbers than White Women, but there is something bigger that is happening.

On November 14, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions came before the Senate and testified about many things, but the biggest blow to Black Women was the exchange of ethnic and gender representation within the Department of Justice.

After having America’s first African American male and African American female Attorney Generals, we are left with an Attorney General that has not one single person black person in the senior staff of the Department of Justice. In fact, there is only ONE black male who was appointed to be a federal judge. There are no Black Women who were nominated or confirmed as a federal judge. There are no Black Women appointed to be a federal deputy attorney.

Let’s pause again and think about the implications of having not one black woman who is recently appointed to a lifetime position as a federal judge. We have a sea of white men appointed as judges and deputy attorneys with less than 10% of all the appoints being even White Women.

So, as these 46% of White Women who voted for Trump, is having a white man in office helping or hurting your position within receiving positions of governing?

The lack of diversity matters because these White Men will be interpreting the law through sentencing individuals, through handing out warrants, through leading investigations, through prosecuting crimes, through fighting for or against voting discrimination, through fighting for gender inequality cases, and through ensuring that our civil liberties and civil rights is being upheld.

The 96% of African American women insisted that their vote was a protection of our lives, our rights, and our careers. The rest of America needs to get on board in the next election in your area and the national election of 2018 and 2020.