From the Underground Railroad to Black Lives Matter to the #MeToo movement or solidifying voter rights in Georgia, Black women have demonstrated throughout American history a commitment to equality and human rights.
That type of dedication was on display July 21, the same day President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic presidential nominee. A total 44,000 Black women gathered on Zoom and raised more than $1.5 million for Harris in just three hours.
During the call, participants called for Black women to unite behind Harris, but in the same breath they cautioned listeners to steel themselves for sexist and racist attacks against her.
Those bigoted attacks have arrived.
“I wanted to join the call because I knew what it was about: The fact that this Black woman is stepping into this role that [she was] essentially thrusted into, and that there was going to be a lot of backlash, a lot of racism and adverse reactions to her as an individual – everything that we’re seeing right now,” Ashley Janelle, a UX designer and founder of UX training company Empathive, told TheWrap.
“It was a time for us all to come together and figure out how we’re going to support her, but also how we’re going to take care of ourselves.”
TheWrap spoke to several Black women and experts about Harris’ historic run who said they all anticipated the current racist backlash. Just as quickly as Harris vowed to “earn and win” the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, strong reactions came flooding in. Now Black women are bracing for an uphill battle, personally and politically.
“From a mental health point of view, the things that we’re grappling with and the things we’re experiencing ourselves, you can’t get rid of that when you go into the workplace,” said Patrice Le Goy, a psychologist and licensed marriage and family therapist. “It’s still there, and in some cases where things are so public, then it’s also being discussed in the workplace.”
From a purely electoral standpoint, Black women matter in November because they show up consistently. They voted at a higher rate than any other group across gender, race and ethnicity in 2012, when Barack Obama ran against Mitt Romney, according to the Center for American Progress. In 2016, 94% of Black women voted for Hillary Clinton in her presidential face off against Donald Trump.
But political commentator Wendy Osefo, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University and founder of The 1954 Equity Project, put it plainly: Attacking Harris’ race or gender is a losing strategy.
“[It’s] very bad for business,” Osefo said. “That way of attacking a candidate is actually going to turn on them. It’s only going to ignite fire within other people.”
Déjà vu attacks
Already, several white conservative pundits and politicians are leaning into racism and misogyny as a campaign strategy against Harris.
In an interview with CNN, Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett called Harris a “DEI hire.” Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman said Democrats feel compelled to choose Harris “because of her ethnic background.” And conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly declared that Kamala Harris “slept her way” into politics.
Kamie Crawford, cohost of MTV’s “Catfish,” was one of several influential Black women to react to Harris’ bid for the presidency online and share her predictions about how Harris would be treated. Crawford said the GOP’s offensive remarks are just a replay of the same racist tactics that have been used against Black people – including herself – for years.
“It’s the same old song. We have heard it, we’ve seen it, we’ve experienced it,” Crawford said. “I was crowned Miss Teen USA when I was 17 years old and was told that was because of affirmative action. I got the job as the cohost of one of the biggest shows on MTV and was told the same thing, that I was in some way adding negatively to the diversity of the show — that more Black people were being featured because I’m on the show, but in a bad way.”
The attacks on Harris are, for many, deja vu from Obama’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and his eight years as the country’s first Black president. And as with Obama, political opponents have questioned Harris’ citizenship because she has immigrant parents.
However, unlike Obama’s era, some Republican leaders quickly called for party members to end discriminatory shots at Harris. Three experts suggested to TheWrap that this denunciation has less to do with morality and more to do with electoral math — they can’t win an election by alienating people of color.
The GOP’s switch-up recalls the moment in 1981, when Republican political consultant and strategist Lee Atwater explained the strategy of weaponizing racism in politics. Republicans’ discriminatory remarks are just a new way to cover their racism, Todd Boyd, Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, told TheWrap .
“[Atwater] goes, ‘When I started politics you could say, n—a, n—a, n—a,’ and said that it changed,” Boyd explained. “You couldn’t say that anymore, so you had to figure out a way to say that through policy, through your political platform. You had to figure out some alternate way of saying something racist without directly saying it. Racism was pronounced during Obama’s two terms, but it didn’t stop him from being president. There was a time when that would have stopped him.”
Boyd said that some Republicans are realizing those kinds of attacks won’t yield the same results as they have before because America is more diverse in 2024 than in 2008.
“Smart people on the Republican side… recognize that it’s going to take more than racist, sexist slights to accomplish what they want,” he said.
Boyd also noted that Obama won both the Electoral College and the popular vote twice, and he accomplished that without winning the majority of white voters.
“That speaks to everything that came about afterwards,” Boyd said. “You didn’t need to win a majority of white votes to be the president of the United States, which is telling about the country we live in.”
The voting power of Black women
Black women have shown up consistently at the polls, despite the barriers put up against them. And in 2008, there was an uptick in Black voters, led by Black women and the youth. Black women voted at a higher rate than any other racial, ethnic or gender group, according to a 2009 Census Bureau survey, and for the first time, younger Black voters turned out at a higher rate than their white counterparts.
That way of attacking a candidate is actually going to turn on them. It’s only going to ignite fire within other people.
Political commentator Wendy Osefo
Black women make up 7.7% of the total U.S. population and 15.3% of American women. But some 67% of Black women are registered to vote this year. A KFF survey of women voters showed that about 77% of Black women ages 50 and older said they’re “absolutely certain” they’ll vote in the 2024 election. Of Black women under 50, 49% said they’ll surely vote, and 32% said they are split between whether they’ll vote or not.
“When you attack Kamala with sexist remarks, you’re not only offending the Democratic Party,” Osefo said. “It’s offensive to all women and is also offensive to all people who are in the minority class… You’re saying the only reason that they got what they got is because there was a quota that needed to be filled, as opposed to their professional prowess or their academic acumen? No, that’s a slap in the face.”
As Black women, Ashley, Crawford and Osefo all shared that their emotions are split between excited and fearful when it comes to Harris’ run. While her bid represents progressive change in the country, they believe hateful attacks are just beyond the horizon.
Le Goy advises Black women to emphasize self care in the face of that.
“It’s a lot of extra work that women and women of color have to do in these environments where it’s predominantly white workspaces,” Le Goy said. “We have to know where we are on our journey. I can be happy, I can celebrate this, and I can also say, ‘I might need a break from this, maybe I’m not going to watch this clip because it’s going to get you upset and it’s not going to motivate me.’ That’s a boundary that I need to draw.”
