There is no joy this morning
OPINION: Like many, I hoped to wake up to the news that Kamala Harris had pulled out the improbable. Like many, I, again, woke up disappointed.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
As a professional writer—an opinion writer at that—my job is to provide perspective on things that are happening all around us. In that role, some days are easier than others. And then there are days when that task feels insurmountable.
Today is one of those days.
Like a great many people, I was up until about 3 a.m. on election night, nauseously waiting for confirmation of dread I began to feel much, much earlier in the night—America had once again elected Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States of America. When I went to sleep, that fact wasn’t certain, but by the time I woke up at 6 a.m. to get my kids ready for school and share the results, all of the news outlets ensured today was not going to be a good day.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024, started out so promising. My wife, an alumna of Howard University, took three of my children to vote with her, full of pride and confidence. My sons got to watch their mother cast her presidential ballot for a woman who walked the same campus yard she did. They saw the possibility. They saw promise. They saw the future. My wife voted for Kamala Harris not just because she went to Howard University, but because she’s a woman and a mother and because the future of this nation, as always, depends on women and mothers to ensure its survival. Especially, Black women.
And also, because the other guy is a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic felon who shouldn’t even be allowed to run for the highest office in the land. But here we are today, having to explain to our children this hurtful reality of Trump’s return, trying to mask as much of the pain as possible so as to not kill their joy and innocence.
We told our kids matter-of-factly that Trump had been elected president, but honestly I wanted to yell and scream about what kind of country we live in that would so overwhelmingly vote for Trump—again—with all of the information we have about him. I couldn’t do that to my kids though. I couldn’t take away their belief that the country they live in values them, despite the many times I’ve had to acknowledge there are bad people here who don’t want to see them thrive, much less live.
I have a daughter this country failed back in 2016 when somehow, someway, Hillary Clinton lost the election to Trump. I vividly remember that feeling of telling her she couldn’t let anyone take away her belief that a woman could run this country, and should have the opportunity to do so. Kamala’s loss feels so much more personal now because the woman who lost to such a horrible human being looks like my daughter.
It’s a painful morning in African America. I’m a Black man. While I think the narrative that Black men refused to vote for a Black woman is overblown (I and all the Black men I know did vote for Kamala), more Black men voted for Trump this election than the last one, and it requires interrogation and acknowledgement that some Black men just can’t vote for a woman, much less a Black woman.
I’m sure the dissection of what the gender voting gap means will happen in the days and months ahead. But whatever smoke comes, Black men have to own it because I simply cannot imagine what it must feel like to be a Black woman today.
Black women showed up and showed out for Kamala, but not just for Kamala, but for the possibility. For the potential. For the dream. I hurt for the Black women I know, love, and consider to be family and friends, who get constant reminders that America is not interested in their strength and might, unless it is saving this country from itself.
Election night was another reminder in a consistent thread of reminders. America, and specifically the white people in it, might try to say this wasn’t about race—Obama was elected twice, after all. But I cannot be convinced all of the white men and women who smile in the faces of Black women who run cities, companies, and everything in between could truly stomach the fact that a Black woman could be the face of this nation. White America does not love Black women, even if the best interest of the country is at stake. America, as they say, gon’ America.
I hope all of the Black women I know are able to find some solace today, tomorrow and in the coming months. From where? I don’t know. Probably just from one another. For all of the women I know, I will do the best I can to be present and check in. I was excited for my wife, my daughter, my boys and for the country to live out the dream of a nation where anybody could truly ascend to the highest office, even the most disrespected person in America.
America is more than ready for a woman to lead. America is more than ready for a Black woman to lead. But being ready for it and being able to make it a possibility are two entirely different things.
If she allows it, check in on the Black women in your lives—the polls indicate that if she voted, it’s highly likely she voted for Kamala; for a vision that included her existence. I can’t imagine the pain Black women are feeling today but then again, I’m not sure I ever could anyway.
Psalms 30:5 says that “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” We all have to believe this ideal in order for the ever-evolving (and at times, devolving), experiment called America to work. I just wish we had an idea of when that morning was coming.
Thank you Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for a race well run and for giving us a new form of belief in what could be. For now, we’ll all be waiting for morning.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).