I’m disappointed as hell that we started with the most diverse field of candidates in history, and still ended up with two front runners whose policies, priorities, and track records reflect the lived experiences of white male career politicians in their late seventies.

How refreshing.

I was invited to join a panel on the radio today, after the self-fulfilling news cycle of the last couple of weeks finally came true and the race between Warren, Biden, and Sanders finally did truly become a two-man contest.

I was supposed to talk about electability, and I prepared a lot of content about how the fallacy of “electability” is weaponized disproportionately against candidates from underrepresented populations.

What does “underrepresented” mean?

Well, according to the 2019 census and a study by the Reflective Democracy Campaign:

• Women of color comprise 20% of the population and only 4% of our elected officials.

• Men of color comprise 19% of the population, and 7% of our elected officials. (Although they do get to claim 1.85% of our Presidents! So there’s that!)

• White women comprise 31% of the population and 27% of our elected officials.

• Aaand white men comprise 30% of the population, 62% of our elected officials, and 98.15% of our Presidents.
  

I know it’s easy to get tunnel vision around that last set of stats. Lord knows I did, and when I came to there was an empty Sara Lee cheesecake box at my feet and a rumbly in my tumbly. I do have another point to make, but I want to give you a moment to recover your normal breathing patterns.

You good?

Okay, now I want you to notice that the most politically underrepresented group in America is women of color.

The second most politically underrepresented group in America is men of color.

The keys to the room where it happens? They are too often passed down from man to man, but they are almost exclusively passed down from white person to white person. In this primary, sadly, it ended up being both. Is there any more cheesecake?

I’ve said it before and lots of smarter people have said it too: if your feminism isn’t rooted in, centered on, and following the lead of women of color, you need to check in. As white women, you and I have far more invested in the survival of the patriarchy than we’d like to believe we do, because the patriarchy is also the white supremacy that’s kept us nice white ladies power-adjacent, even as it’s kept us largely out of power.

Tonight, a lot of us are depressed. In the primary we’ll be choosing between two white men who sincerely want to speak for the underrepresented, and missed the memo that underrepresented people aren’t missing voices, but microphones. You know, like the ones you fellas are using right now.

Then, in the general election, we will be choosing between two white men, one of whom (our current President) can’t enter a church without his skin burning, the rats fleeing, and the holy water churning to a boil. The Democrat will be… well, definitely better than that guy. That’s all I can say at the moment. Depressing.

But even if we’ll have to wait four more years to take another swing at the glass ceiling, I want to point out something critically important:

Those stats I posted above might seem to reinforce the idea that electability is a conversation we should really be having. At a moment of national crisis, if you look at those stats, you might conclude that the majority of the country puts its faith in white male leaders over any other demographic.

If you followed your news in traditional media or social media, you might have found yourself hearing voter after voter claim that they liked one candidate, but had concerns about electability. One by one, those candidates ended up out of the race. It seems to suggest that the electability concerns leveled against a number of candidates and most recently Elizabeth Warren were prescient, not a self-fulfilling prophecy. It might be easy to draw a line from “electability” issues to a candidate’s lack of viability.

That is not the case. It is, in fact, a lie.

A 2018 study by the Reflective Democracy Campaign looked at 34,000 candidates at the federal, state, and county levels and found that women and people of color won elections at the same rates as white men.

(PS, those findings were consistent with the findings of a similar study from 2015, so don’t tell me that we have Trump to thank for the increased turnout of both candidates and voters from underrepresented communities.)

Women are electable. People of color are electable.

It’s too late for the presidency this time, but do not count us out.

And crucially, I’m begging you, do not count yourself out either. You weren’t built to ride the bench. Get up.

Run.

Organize.

Volunteer.

Yes, of course, vote. Vote for a presidential candidate whose vision for America most closely aligns with your own. Don’t vote for the candidate whom you imagine people you’ve never met might vote for, for that reason alone.

But also remember that if the only way we could make a difference was by voting once every four years for a President that made us go “eh, I guess” we’d be well and truly fucked. Vote down your whole dang ballot, all the way to your school boards and port commissioners, and when it’s not time to vote, get your tush to an organization that promotes that vision of the America you want your kids to live in.

Shit isn’t over. Not even close. Now get out there!

If you liked this post, do America a solid and drop a buck or five into the jar at Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams’ organization fighting voter suppression.