The Uncomfortable Truth About White Women for Trump & Their Hatred Towards Black Women
As we analyze the exit polls from the 2020 election, some of us who identify as Democrats were a bit hopeful White women on the moderate right might finally see Trump for who he is resulting in the desire to perhaps vote for Biden. To no avail, data revealed Republican White women voted almost double the rate compared to the 2016 election. Alas, Black women saved the country from itself, again. I think it is safe to say a large piece of this election boiled down to right-wing White women and left-wing Black women. History tells us this passive aggressive tension is nothing new.
Historian and fellow Black woman, Stephanie Jones-Rogers studies White women’s role in slavery and their growth of economic power. Jones-Rogers reveals a less docile and powerless role as portrayed by the southern narrative, revealing White women accounted for about 40% of all slave holders. “For them, slavery was their freedom,” Jones-Rogers. Translation, the oppressed soon became the oppressor.
It is widely understood White men raped their female slaves, as young as 9, but certainly around 13 years old as they were coming on to their menstrual cycle, breeding them like animals until they couldn’t have kids anymore. Consequently, young, Black girls and women were subjected to the insecurities and harsh treatment of slave masters’ wives, brewing twisted generational hate. There are accounts of White women, if upset, orchestrating acts of sexual violence towards slaves to be performed by their husbands. To add to their internal conflicts of power, some arranged rapes to time their pregnancy with the slave to ensure the slave breastfed her child, also known as wet nursing. On the contrary, if you can visualize with me for a moment, imagine the conditions of an aging White woman, some who possibly experienced issues of infertility, being forced to witness their pedophile husband consistently have sex with a young Black child, impregnate her, and there isn’t anything she can explicitly do about it. These seemingly polarizing conflicts White women had with Black women continue to show up throughout history.
As we have come to witness over the decades, White women have gained power with their voices in education, the economy, and in politics, an outcome of the women’s suffrage movement. Exactly one hundred years ago, the White women’s right to vote was established by the 19th amendment. The women’s suffrage movement ought to be coined, the “White woman’s suffrage movement” just so we’re clear on who it was actually for. Liberal racist and suffragist Elizabeth Stanton, and other White women alike, quickly expelled Black women from the movement to push their agenda of being recognized as equals with White men, leaving Black women to yet again fend for themselves and their families. Black women, majority from the South, sought to build Black power in their communities by seeking the ballot for themselves and Black men. Black peoples struggle to vote resulted in lynching’s, incessant harassment, murders by police, and kidnappings which became rampant after the emancipation and fully boiled over during Jim Crow. Moving the timeline to 2020, Black women in the South are still fighting for their vote to be counted. Black activists are going to the streets to demand justice because of police brutality, terrorizing, and thousands of Black girls missing. The discriminatory parallels of race and gender are clear.
We can’t continue to ignore the inherited hatred towards Black women and girls experienced by right-wing, and arguably liberal, White women. Those private conversations exist. Many White men fetishize Black girls and women, [albeit we are entirely more than our bodies], and we cannot pretend jealousy and envy do not play a role in how White women show up to the polls. How often in racist American culture do we shift the story to focus on the resentment and bitterness of a White woman towards Black girls and women, even to this day? Why is it acceptable to continue to push a narrative of Black women getting hysterectomies while science creates uteruses for mostly infertile White women? Why does our country overlook the historical distaste many White women have towards Black women and then wonder why we cannot make sense of White women voting for Trump?
We can no longer be surprised by the data and count on White women to support left-wing Black women to contribute to our political and economic liberation. Many enjoy the benefits of White supremacy, even if that means their gender makes them a runner up to White men. It’s as if every time there’s a chance to empower women, they show that they don’t mean all women.