Media Must Stop Distorting the Narrative: Black Women Are Stepping Back Because of America’s Endorsement of Racism and Misogyny, Not Minority Support for Trump
By Edrea Davis – Kenya Hunter of the Associated Press wrote a compelling article about Black women reassessing their role as the backbone of American democracy and their contributions to political and social movements following Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory. After witnessing Trump secure the popular vote and presidency despite holding rallies with racist insults, promoting policies targeting diversity and equity, lies about the race of his opponent, and spreading disinformation about Black immigrants eating pets, many Black women are disillusioned with the nation’s priorities.
Hunter reports (click here for full story):
It’s like the people have spoken and this is what America looks like,” said Smith, the Los Angeles-based founder of the advocacy social media agency, Get Social. “And there’s not too much more fighting that you’re going to be able to do without losing your own sanity.”
“America is going to have to save herself,” said LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of the national voting rights group Black Voters Matter…..
People can rely on Black women to lead change, Brown said, but the next four years will look different. “That’s not a herculean task that’s for us. We don’t want that title. … I have no goals to be a martyr for a nation that cares nothing about me,” she said.
Nicole Lewis, an Alabama-based therapist who specializes in treating Black women’s stress, said she’s aware that Black women withdrawing from social impact movements could have a fallout. But she also hopes that it forces a reckoning for the nation to understand the consequences of not standing in solidarity with Black women.
I agree with the women quoted in Hunter’s piece. It’s not the article I have a problem with, it’s the headline. The media that buttressed the election of a president whose overt racism traumatizes an entire segment of the population is still pointing at invisible men instead of doing the job of the fourth estate. Why is American media so afraid to, as Iyanla Vanzant says, “call a thing a thing?”
How in the world can anyone read Hunter’s article and describe it with the Associated Press’ title? Perhaps there was a different edit that didn’t make the cut but “Feeling Betrayed by Increased Minority Support For Trump, Black Women Say They’re Stepping Back” doesn’t describe the essence of the published story. Which quotes supported the title? A more appropriate title might be: “Black Women Are Frustrated, Exhausted, and Confused by the Majority of White Voters Supporting Racist Felon Who Lies About Black Immigrants Eating Pets.”
Black women are indeed tired and frustrated—but not because of the small number of Black voters who supported Donald Trump. The majority of Black voters emphatically rejected his racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric. The frustration stems instead from the overwhelming support he received from White voters in America who backed a racist bigot with 34 felony convictions and was found liable for sexual assault. This support goes beyond Trump himself, and extends to the normalization of lewd behavior that should be universally condemned.
The hypocrisy is staggering. Voters whose push for “law and order” has resulted in mass incarceration that has devastated Black communities, claim to uphold family values, but their actions prove that they don’t believe these principles apply to wealthy White men. They not only condone Trump’s criminal and lewd behavior, but also support his appointment of individuals with troubling histories. This includes figures like his initial pick for US Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, previously under investigation for federal sex-trafficking violations; Pete Hegseth, accused of sexual assault; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accused of assaulting a former family babysitter; and Elon Musk, accused of sexual misconduct involving a flight attendant. Let’s not forget they also resoundingly support full immunity from crimes for the president of the United States and police officers.
This is what “Make America Great Again” looks like—as it always has. It reflects an era when White men lynched Black men and raped Black women without consequence for centuries, a history that many now seek to erase through efforts to ban Black history. These bans are not about education, but about forgetting—forgetting the reality that America’s greatness for some has always been built on the exploitation and dehumanization of others.
Black women recognize that they will always suffer the worse from injustice and inequality just as Black men understand that they will be disrespected, feared and treated the worse in the world. From Harriett Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, to Vice President Kamala Harris, Black women rise to the occasion for their people. Black women are not frustrated with their own communities. They are disgusted and disillusioned with the embrace of racism, sexism, xenophobia, criminal behavior, and the normalization of sexual violence by a significant portion of White America.
This perpetuates a long-standing pattern of excusing and rewarding the wrongdoings of wealthy White men. It’s no wonder Black women are stepping back, reassessing their roles in movements that demand everything of them while giving little in return.
Voting rights leader, Latosha Brown, tell’s quote from Kenya’s article tells the whole story. “This ain’t our reckoning…I don’t feel no guilt.”
If the media hasn’t learned anything over the past nine years, they should have learned to do their job and call a lie a lie, a crime a crime, and a racist a racist. Just “call a thing a thing.”
(Read the full Associated Press story on apnews.com)