Every day in America as a woman of color is like a slap in the face. A stinging, jarring reminder that you are not equal. The jolt might be a snarky remark from a colleague, or someone who pushed by you in the store as if you were invisible, or the fact that the murderous cop who killed Breonna Taylor still hasn’t been arrested.
This morning I awoke to the mind numbing news that women’s organizations and organizations representing women of color are preparing for an onslaught of sexist and potentially racist attacks on Democratic presidential elect Joe Biden’s female running mate. Biden is expected to announce his selection any day now. He has a plethora of wonderfully talented women to choose from. Yet, 48 years after Shirley Chisholm was the first black major party candidate for president, and 36 years after Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman candidate for vice president, and four years after Hillary Clinton lost a heartbreaking election to Donald Trump, this country is still grappling with whether it is ready for a woman in the number two slot, who might become number one. And, scarier yet for the United States of Hate, she might be Black.
From my perch it is like Groundhog Day all over again, and unlike the movie and the memes, there is nothing remotely funny about this cyclical scenario of ignorance and intolerance that keeps rearing its ugly head. As a black woman I am so completely and utterly over it. I am done justifying my existence and I wish women far more accomplished than me, didn’t have to.
The vice presidential candidates under consideration have gone to the best schools, they have served their country, practiced law, raised children, held positions of power in the private sector and government, been elected and reelected to Congress and the state house, they run major cities, speak multiple languages and have prospered in spite of their gender and race in a country that puts boulders in their path at every turn.
By 2020 I thought, prayed, hoped this narrow-minded, nonsense would be a thing of the past. I am mad as hell that it isn’t.
When I was the first black woman bureau chief at The Seattle Times in the 80s and the first black woman fashion writer at The Detroit News in the early 90s and the only black woman executive in corporate communications at several Fortune 100 companies in the 2000s, what should have made me feel good, actually made me sad. The fact that I was the first and only was a pathetic commentary on our society then and continues to be now.
While I would love to see a black woman vice presidential candidate for the first time, and now is the time, I will support the woman Joe Biden selects.
There really is no choice. Until we change every aspect of the way this country views women, and especially women of color, it will be Groundhog Day all over again and all we will see are shadows of the past.
