White women: Your whiteness will not save you from the GOP. Vote accordingly | Opinion

I’ve been ashamed of my fellow white women for far too long. Yes, I said ashamed.

I know white women can do better for our neighbors, friends and families, and yet our voting record has repeatedly shown that we disproportionately vote for conservative politicians that have so clearly shown they do not care about women.

Your whiteness will not save you from the horrors planned for women under a second Trump Administration.

Opinion

So this November, white voters — white women, especially — must step up next to voters of color to help push Donald Trump out of contention. White women are the largest voting bloc that consistently votes majority conservative, so pushing the GOP’s numbers below 50% would mean a landslide Harris win.

However, it’s going to take white Americans to convince other white Americans; this has to be white on white work. And, as recently as last week, I’m finally able to say that thousands of white women showed up to “Answer The Call.”

White women ‘broke Zoom

In the last two weeks, there have been nationwide Zoom calls rallying support for presidential candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris. It started with the “Win With Black Women” event, a forum for American Black women to gather, support and donate to Harris’ campaign.

Over the course of four hours, more than 40,000 people, mostly Black women, raised more than $1.6 million. Black men organized a similar call for the next day with 53,000 people and raised $1.3 million. Then, Latinas for Harris organized and raised more than $110,000.

The gauntlet was thrown.

Within hours, the “Answer The Call: White Women for Harris” event was organized by Moms Demand Action leader Shannon Watts. More than 100,000 people attended, and the surge in donations to Harris’ campaign temporarily broke the Democratic Party’s website. White women raised a staggering $8.5 million.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of women and men have shown their support for Harris’ candidacy in the past two weeks in race-based identity groups, and more than $11 million has been raised to beat Trump this November — and all of it in less than two weeks since Harris announced her candidacy.

But the key is winning white women over to the Democratic ticket, Black voting activists say.

White women are largest voting bloc

Though American women as a bloc have reliably voted for Democratic candidates in every election since 1992, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, it’s largely been women voters of color holding that line.

“A majority of white women have voted for the Republican candidate since the 2000 presidential election, when white women were almost equally split between Democrat Al Gore and Republican victor, George W. Bush,” the center reports on its website. “In contrast, a large majority of Black, Latinx and Asian women have supported the Democratic candidate for the entirety of the time period in which data … has been available.”

Even after four years of lies from the Trump administration, the center reports that exit polls in 2020 showed that up to 55% of white women voted for a second Trump term, while 90% of Black women voters supported Joe Biden and almost 70% of Hispanic women.

In short: White women have historically voted for conservative politicians and policies that ultimately harm women and people of color, while women of color tend to vote for liberal policies that are more equitable overall.

This election, however, I’m hopeful white women will finally flip the script.

Work needed on conversion

I’ll admit that I was initially uncomfortable with the idea of a call for white people to organize. That kind of rallying has historically led to robust sales of tiki torches and bedsheets with holes in them, but the calls from Black social media influencers were encouraging.

“Hey white women? It’s time to step up and talk to your kinfolk about Kamala Harris,” posted Imani Gandy, a lawyer and journalist who goes by the handle @AngryBlackLady on X, formerly Twitter. “We can do this but you need to help.”

“White supremacy won’t die until white people see it as a white issue they need to solve rather than a Black issue they need to emphasize with,” said Dwayne Reed, a Black social media influencer, author and educator.

These Black men and women are spreading the message that white women can and must do better in 2024. Maybe, finally, white women are starting to realize that.

So, white Democrats: We must stop relying on Americans of color to do the work in our own communities and start educating our neighbors about the issues at stake in this election. I’m sorry to tell you that some of our friends and family members will only listen to the argument if another white person is saying it.

Historically, we have voted according to our own interests alone, enriching our bank accounts while systematically removing rights and government assistance from Americans who do not share our privilege and skin color. But with the fall of Roe and the horrifying promises the GOP candidates are making about further elimination of women’s rights and voting rights, I hope now moderate and conservative white women will understand the GOP is coming for them, too.

Yes, it’s deeply uncomfortable for many white people to talk about their race and identity politics in America, but our voting record has forced us to this point. I’m only sorry it took us so long to get here.

Not only could white women be a driving force to help elect the first female U.S. president, but perhaps — finally — we might earn our place in the sisterhood. In order to do that, white women must understand: Your whiteness will not save you. Vote accordingly.