‘The whole country could be in flames and we’d still see “nasty woman” t-shirts,’ says Patricia Wallace about this year’s United States presidential election.
Wallace is a 25-year-old biracial art student. She splits her time between Chicago and Boston. Her fears, while tongue in cheek, tap into a deep-seated fear of many young women of colour living in the United States.
A week out from the presidential election and our national conversation still revolves around memes, catch phrases and political gotchas. For an election that feels more important than ever, the country has turned instead to distractions and sound bites that only play a microscopic part in what is at stake for the next four years. Immigration, reproductive rights, economic equality and racial, religious and ethnic justice are just some of the issues at the forefront of the minds of many young women of colour, and yet their concerns have been relegated to the background.
If the candidates and the climate of the election are a reflection of the current state of the country, the picture is not a good one. We have ignored our very real problems and instead directed our attention to conspiracy theories, conjecture, and inflammatory rhetoric. But on November 9th and for the four years after, many in this country will have to come to terms with the results of our inaction and willful ignorance. Make no mistake: that outcome sparks a very real fear that drives and infuriates young women of colour here.
‘I feel like the lesser of two evils is fear tactic usually,’ Wallace told me, ‘but in this case I am legitimately worried that things would get worse if Trump were elected.’ Her sentiments were expressed by many of the young women I spoke to from states as different, geographically and demographically speaking, as Arizona, Texas, Illinois and Massachusetts for this piece. The choice to vote or not vote is not on the table for this presidential election; voting has become imperative.
For those living in swing states, their vote has the potential to sway the outcome, like Alesia Pullins, an early thirtysomething black woman living in Phoenix, Arizona, her vote could change her state from red (or Republican) to blue (or Democrat). Both the Cook Political Report and the Rothenburg & Gonzalez Political Reportlist Arizona as a potential swing state for the 2016 election, this is a first. The southwestern state–normally known for its abundance of retirees–has seen a resurgence of young people in its strong state colleges and as a result of its growing tech scene.
For Pullins the question of who to vote for –like many other young women of colour–is not an easy one. She must grapple with two candidates who have promised little regarding her most pressing political issues and reached out in superficial ways to her racial or ethnic demographic. Pullins thinks both candidates are the worst she has seen in her years of voting.
‘I don’t have hope for either candidate,’ she says, reflecting on the current state of the election. ‘Donald Trump is obviously not an option, but I don’t have a lot of hope in Hillary as a complete alternative.’ Her ideal candidate–something she has not seen thus far in a national presidential election–would be honest about where we are as a country. ‘I’m not expecting the world,’ she adds.
Despite her aversion to both candidates, Pullins says she will vote Clinton, ‘Donald Trump is an unabashed racist and a vile human all around, from his comments on immigrants to black folks to sexual assault survivors to Hillary,’ she concludes ‘I’ve never heard anything come out of his mouth that makes me think he’s human.’
Although she more readily agrees with some of Clinton’s policies, she is wary about her past as well as how she has clamored for votes in the current election. For Pullins, Clinton’s tactics lack authenticity. She can and will do whatever necessary to gain power. ‘I don’t think she’s changed much,’ she says ‘I think she has a good team. I think they’re up on the internet and figuring out buzz words to pander to certain voters, but I don’t know if that pandering is going to turn into anything except for votes for her.’
Wallace says she also does not stand with either candidate in terms of her own personal political values, but that she will still vote. ‘I’ll go to the voting booth with a grimace on my face,’ she says. ‘I really worry about what would happen if Trump were elected and it seems like after eight years of Obama, there’s a white supremacist backlash rising in the country.’
Wallace says she would likely vote for Clinton, but she is aware of Clinton’s complicated background regarding racial politics (such as her use of the term ‘superpredators’ to describe African American youths) and does not feel confident about many of her policy choices. ‘I don’t think if Hillary Clinton were elected it would be a total cake walk, but I don’t think it would be as terrifying to think about,’ Wallace offers.
‘I know who I’m going to vote for and why I’m going to vote for them, but compared to the 2008 and 2012 elections, I just don’t feel as engaged,’ says Michelle Ofiwe, a twentysomething black woman living in Texas, a traditionally red state. Ofiwe reiterates both Pullins and Williams’ views, but she faces particular trouble due to her Southern location. She lives in a predominately black community in the Houston area where she feels safe. But when she leaves her bubble, she ‘sees a Blue Lives Matterbanner here, a Trump sticker there’. ‘I’ve seen some really violent, uprising-like bumper stickers and it’s almost always white people driving the cars that have them. It gives off a very mixed mood.’
Wallace surprisingly faces similar sentiments in Massachusetts, a traditionally blue state. ‘Between this and a lot of the conversations happening around police brutality and Black Lives Matter, it’s crazy,’ she says. ‘When I’m in Massachusetts, I see the [Blue Lives Matter] flag. They’re for solidarity with police. It’s a wacky kind of thing. I liked it better when I didn’t have to see this and be confronted with the worst in people all the time.’
Ofiwe feels rising tension in her state, further underlining the importance of the election despite her misgivings about the candidates. ‘You see more people protesting, so it’s not completely crap, but I think people are starting to get an idea of how big this election is going to be and how the results are going to be, so people are really tuning in and becoming more vocal about how they want to see the election turnout,’ she says.
Still, many young women will enter the voting booths this week with a glimmer of hope. They vote reluctantly, but also with a renewed sense of purpose. Our next four years are critical and the decision they make can affect the very issues that weigh heaviest in their minds.
Pullins feels strongest about economic equality. ‘I do want a candidate who is honest about helping the working class and the working poor,’ she says ‘I’m adamant about poor people and working class people having the tools they need because when they succeed we all succeed.’ She feels Clinton is the best of the two major party presidential candidates to address these issues.
Ofiwe says her ideal political candidate would have to center the issues of black people, especially black women in their campaign: ‘the policies that would come out of that would touch on reproductive justice to Black Lives Matter movement (which would probably manifest itself in an entirely different way than it has now) to education’.
Indeed, by putting black women at the centre of a campaign, a candidate would focus the needs of all Americans because black women are too often denigrated in the hierarchal class and racial structure in this country. Centering your policies around that concern is working from the ground up.
‘I see society operating from a place where black women are at the bottom,’ Ofiwe says. ‘So anything you do to better the lives of black women would help improve other people and improve society. If you go into building policy that protects the most vulnerable, any policy you have coming out of that would be beneficial.’ A stronger foundation could be the backbone of what makes this country great.
For young women of colour, this election is a moment in which our minds and bodies–metaphorically and literally–have been used for political gain. We have been chewed up and spat out to further election campaigns, and so our concerns are still valid and worthy of introspection. The bickering and absurdity of this election means many of our most pressing issues–from immigration reform to economic equality–have not been properly addressed.
‘The Buzzfeed-ification of the election is really disturbing,’ Wallace tells me, ‘real people’s lives are going to be effected. And real people are going hungry. Real people don’t have water. What are we going to do about that? It’s the most basic shit for a nation that is really wealthy.’ Her words belie a common combination of feelings: concern and frustration. Our voices are once again falling on deaf ears, lost in the hubbub of two sides shouting at one another to the detriment of our country as a whole.
In this failure to address us properly they are representative of the fact that our country is currently deeply divided. No longer is that division bubbling under the surface, it has boiled over for all to see. It is something we can no longer ignore because, as we can clearly see now, it is a matter of life or death, freedom or restriction, and compliance or insurrection.
To be a young woman of colour is to be many different things at once; it is to be pulled in many different directions. We must work two or three times as hard as our counterparts to ensure we are seen, heard and understood. That we are recognised feels more pressing than ever. And this election, which now relies so heavily on candidates appealing to the temperaments of so many disparate people might just, ironically, allow us to finally be heard. Our votes are not given freely and willingly and so how we cast them means all the more.
Britt is based in Chicago, she is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.