{"id":972,"date":"2016-05-16T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=972"},"modified":"2016-05-16T08:00:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T12:00:37","slug":"dems-rely-on-black-women-voters-but-why-cant-black-women-get-elected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/dems-rely-on-black-women-voters-but-why-cant-black-women-get-elected\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems Rely on Black Women Voters: But Why Can\u2019t Black Women Get Elected?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[<a title=\"Governor Votes Early\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mdgovpics\/14432536983\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3922\/14432536983_3ff3dca869_k.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Votes Early\" width=\"343\" height=\"228\" \/><\/a> Donna Brazile writes in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msmagazine.com\/Spring2016\"><em>Ms.<\/em> magazine<\/a> that in the elections of 2008 and 2012, the group that turned out to vote in the highest numbers was black women. In 2012, 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-old-black women voted, and 76 percent of all black women were registered to vote. A recent Pew <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2015\/05\/06\/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries\/\">study<\/a> found that in 2012, the voter turnout in the United States was low\u201453.6 percent of the estimated voting-age population. Only 65 percent of the US voting-age population even bothered to register to vote.\nBrazile cites \u201cThe Power of the Sister Vote\u201d poll from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.essence.com\/2015\/09\/16\/essence-and-black-womens-roundtable-release-survey-power-sister-vote\"><em>Essence<\/em> magazine<\/a>, which indicates that the turnout will again be strong for black women in 2016, \u201cdriven by a hunger to institutionalize their gains\u201d in:\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>Increased affordable health-care access<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>Quality education reform and access to low-cost college education<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>Living-wage reforms<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>Criminal justice reforms<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nBut the frustration levels are high for political candidates like Donna Edwards, an African American woman who just lost the Democratic primary race for a Senate seat in Maryland. Jill Filipovic writes in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/02\/opinion\/campaign-stops\/go-ahead-play-the-woman-card.html?_r=0\"><em>New York Times<\/em><\/a> that while the Democrats rely on black female voters, only one black woman has ever been elected to the Senate. In addition, while Trump accuses Clinton of playing the \u201cwoman card,\u201d Edwards, during her primary race, was accused of playing both the \u201cwoman card\u201d and the \u201crace card.\u201d The implication is that these \u201ccards\u201d somehow confer unearned advantages to the women holding them. Yet <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/p\/black-feminist-thought-patricia-hill-collins\/1113960349\/2674027963396?st=PLA&amp;sid=BNB_DRS_Marketplace+Shopping+Textbooks_00000000&amp;2sid=Google_&amp;sourceId=PLGoP20441&amp;k_clickid=3x20441\">research<\/a> shows that for black women, combined stereotypes about both race and gender create double challenges for them to be perceived as competent leaders and elected, or hired, to leadership positions.\nFilipovic suggests that the problem, in general, is that authority, competence, and power are perceived to be male qualities. Several recent studies show that when the same r\u00e9sum\u00e9s are shown to both male and female evaluators, the documents are rated more highly when they have a man\u2019s name, John, on the top than when the same documents have a woman\u2019s name, Jennifer, at the top.\nFilipovic proposes that to fight pervasive prejudices, we need to change our images of competence and power by putting more women, especially more women of color, into positions of authority and leadership so that women in authority becomes normal rather than unusual. Specifically, she says, \u201cwe can\u2019t change longstanding assumptions about what a leader looks like unless we change what leaders look like. . . . Democrats should make [the \u2018woman card\u2019 and the \u2018race card\u2019] central components of a winning hand.\u201d She also suggests that when there are equally qualified men and women competing for positions, Democrats should champion politicians who are not white men. It\u2019s the only way that, in the long run, we are all going to win.\n&nbsp;\nPhoto credit:\u00a0Governor Votes Early. by Jay Baker at Baltimore, MD. via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mdgovpics\/14432536983\/\">Maryland GovPics on Flickr<\/a>]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,137,138,208,225,339,457,481,523,603,610,612,620],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-black-women","tag-democratic-party","tag-democrats","tag-feminism","tag-gender","tag-leadership","tag-politics","tag-race-card","tag-sexism","tag-voters","tag-woman-card","tag-women","tag-women-of-color"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}