After Democrat Doug Jones upset his opponent Roy Moore in the election to choose Alabama's next senator, the celebration on Twitter featured a recurring theme: white people thanking black women for voting en masse to deny Moore a victory.
Exit polls show 98 percent of them cast a ballot for Jones, and many election observers credited his surprising win to black women's turnout. Most black men also voted for Jones, but two-thirds of white women and nearly three-quarters of white men chose Moore.
Black women, in other words, became the symbol of resistance in an election that captured our attention with the horrifying prospect that Alabamians would send to the United States Senate a racially divisive candidate accused of predatory sexual misconduct with teenage girls.
But to some black women who read the tweets and watched #BlackWomen trend on social media, the gratitude felt like a hollow gesture. For them it evoked the "mammy" trope; the black woman as a one-dimensional figure who is delighted to tidy white people's messes and come to their aid after calamity. A racist device, the mammy has no role other than to tend to white families and their needs.
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That's why Leslie Mac, a black woman and co-creator of Safety Pin Box, found the tweets of gratitude disturbing, particularly in the absence of tangible support like financial and institutional resources to help black women advocate for their communities and run for office. The tweets also felt disingenuous in the shadow of widespread voter suppression that undermines black people's ability to even participate in the political process.
"I don’t know what I can do with your gratitude."
"I don’t know what I can do with your gratitude," she said. "I have no use for it, quite frankly. What are you materially going to do to show your thanks, and not just say it?"
By Wednesday morning, versions of that question began to overcome the chorus of appreciation. Mac posted several tweets to that effect, calling on people to support black women with their time and money.
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Kamala Harris, a black Democratic senator, wrote that Americans must do more than congratulate black women. "Let's address issues that disproportionately affect Black women — like pay disparity, housing & under-representation in elected office," she wrote.
Activist Renee Bracey Sherman called out organizations that don't have black women in leadership roles but nevertheless tweeted positively about their role in Jones' victory.
The satirical site Reductress published a story with a headline that spelled out the tension: "White Women Thank Themselves for Thanking Black Women Today."
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Mac felt the moment, which credited black women with saving democracy and America, provided a clear example of how white supremacy operates.
"It takes the motivations of black people and distorts them through the needs of white people," she said. "That is white supremacy in a nutshell."
Nadia E. Brown, associate professor of political science and African-American studies at Purdue University, said that the "mammy" trope is so ingrained in American culture that it's hard for white people to see.
"These are folks whose politics are in the right place," Brown said of the thankful tweeters, "but they don’t have enough historical understanding or cultural openness to understand why this might be problematic."
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Brown, who is black, personally posted a tweet that read, "Black women save the world." She has also dedicated her academic research to interviewing women of color who run for elected office and identifying barriers to their success.
The insights from her work, Brown said, may offer people more concrete ways of supporting black women. She's found that black women, in particular, have to ask for financial donations more frequently than their white male counterparts, and get less money when they do successfully fundraise.
They also often face resistance from Democratic Party leadership. Through anecdotal interviews, Brown has found that the Democratic Party is the last organization to sign-on to supporting black, female candidates. When those women do win an election, they rarely receive key leadership roles, or those positions are severely curtailed.
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If people truly want to support black female Democratic candidates, Brown suggests holding party leadership accountable for providing them with equitable financial support and leadership opportunities.
She also urges people to look beyond shared policy preferences and ask follow-up questions about how issues like healthcare, incarceration, and policing affect black women and the communities they represent, giving extra scrutiny to life-threatening disparities.
"It's about understanding that it’s not just enough to share the resources and act like we’re on the same playing field," she said. "Black women have different experiences and challenges."
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For her part, Mac hopes people will see Jones' victory as an opportunity to prioritize the needs and concerns of all black women.
"We are legitimately and literally fighting for our lives right now," she said. "The decisions we make are centered there. I hope we can get past surviving and get to thriving."
Topics Activism Gender Social Good Politics
