Quick Hit: Black Women Have Always Been Leading the Revolution

“When ya’ll gonna realize that treating black women like deities is just another way to keep pretending that we aren’t human” – Folu

On Tuesday, in a stunning upset, Democrat Doug Jones won the Alabama Senate special election against Republican Roy Moore, flipping a Senate seat in a historically red state with a long history of racist voter suppression.

The race had disturbing echoes of the 2016 Presidential election: Roy Moore – a virulently Islamophobic white supremacist and sexual predator – up against Doug Jones, a white centrist Democrat. And as in 2016, the majority of white people (68%) – and 63% of white women – showed they will condone sexual violence if it means upholding white supremacy. Jones’ victory was due to black voters. In the face of decades of voter suppression and gerrymandering, an overwhelming 98% of black women and 93% of black men voted for Jones. Black voters – in particular black women – stopped Moore, and they did it through years and years of organizing for liberation against the constraints of partisan politics.

So instead of praising black women for “saving us” from Moore, it’s time we recognized their work and supported their leadership. Catch up on how black women activists are responding to the Alabama election:

In a Twitter thread, Bree Newsome connects statements like “Black women saved white folks from ourselves” to the long history of the racist “mammy trope” that depicts black women as the selfless saviors of white people:

This narrative about Black voters “saving” Alabama would imply that majority of white voters–the majority of people in the state–wanted to be “saved” from Moore. They didn’t. Black voters protected themselves

— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) December 13, 2017

Instead of examining the ramping up of the racist police state that has occurred in recent years & how Black ppl are responding, we can imagine AL as a strange land disconnected from USA where good Black people save America™ from uniquely racist white people — Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) December 13, 2017

The active role whites play in maintaining racism (voting for Trump & Moore, for ex) has to be denied in order to maintain the myth that white dominance of wealth & power is the byproduct of a natural superiority & not brutal violence — Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) December 13, 2017

      Mariame Kaba (@PrisonCulture) on the concrete ways you can support black women and girls’ organizing, like Assata’s Daughters:

I DO NOT WANT ANY PERFORMATIVE GRATITUDE. Don’t need it. I would like people to resource Black girls & women (trans & cis) AND also I would like people to actually ORGANIZE to transform people’s material conditions. — Hallmark Evangelist (@prisonculture) December 13, 2017

Feminista Jones and Joy Williams talk about years of black women’s organizing in the #BlackWomenLead movement after white liberals attempt to take credit for their work

But that’s what y’all do. You’re socialized to believe we need saving so you decide you’re going to be saviors. You ignore our words and work. You ignore what we say we actually need and take things upon yourselves

— ♈️☀️Chief Blocka?♌️ (@FeministaJones) December 14, 2017

Although a Democratic candidate won in Alabama, the Democratic Party doesn’t get to claim this as a victory after consistently ignoring the needs of black southern voters and relying on desperation and fear to get people to vote blue, while blaming black voters for low turnout. It is Black women have consistently been at the forefront of movements for liberation, transforming the South and the country through feminist activism committed to supporting the most vulnerable among us.

For a more in-depth look at one example of black women’s organizing for community healing in the South, check out Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ “Freedom Seeds: Growing Abolition in North Carolina.”

“We believe that we grow the world we want community by community grounded in our specific contexts but growing a shared and dynamic vision and process that will bloom, revealing alternatives to a violent policing, imprisoning state, and feeding us with the fruits of our loving labor.”

Rather than portray black women’s political participation on Tuesday as an anomaly, let us understand black women’s history of involvement in activism and support their work to dismantle white supremacy and racial capitalism.

Header image: Assata’s Daughters

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