What’s Race Got To Do With It?

Antonia Williams-Gary
Antonia Williams-Gary

By ANTONIA WILLIAMS-GARY Painstaking post-election parsing of the numbers suggest that Black and Brown folk did not vote their interests; giving Donald Trump a victory.

These racial studies are thoughtful and legitimate questions to examine, but I think that attribution needs to be looked at from a different perspective.

So, if not race, then what?

The 2024 presidential election has proven once again, that race is a diminishing factor to measure identity politics, and that the so-called “browning of America,” is not a real threat.

No, the threat is to any dilution of the power structure which is still rooted in the original sin committed when this country was first formed: to give all power to property-owning white male Protestants who have, over time, and under changing laws, reluctantly opened their tent and yielded some of their power to others who can now own property, vote, worship, and marry freely.

Yes, power has been shared, especially with those others who fully join their caste, the politically powerful. Hence, we have seen the behavior of racial/ethnic groups continue to shift toward a paradigm that some say is against their interests.

Not so. Everyone votes their interests.

Here, Isabel Wilkerson reminds us that our interests is in the advancement of our position of relative power, defined by how adjacent you are to the base of power. It’s about caste.

That’s a compelling argument to explain why we can have so many Black men, and some Black women, as well as so many in the other groups of non-whites, who voted for Trump.

We need to examine what is the color of power; why “whiteness,” i.e., the culture, mores, and status of that group, trumps concern about the economy, immigration issues, misogyny or homophobia, or the fate of our democracy. And why so many yearn for admittance into that power group. It has clearly been demonstrated that too many folk aspire to be white, primarily because that has been, and continues to be the standard for power.

Look at the behavior of the “colored’’ immigrants: Hispanics, Asians, Middle Easterners, et al., who voted for Trump, not as a rejection of their race, culture, or group identity, but to align themselves with power and put themselves in closer adjacency to the established power structure.

There are even some Africans, undeniably Black, who have aligned themselves with the white power structure once they have settled in this country.

And as for our “brothers” and “sisters,” some might argue that it is about time we seek individual power over identity/group politics.

Enter Tim Scott, Mark Robinson, Hershell Walker, Ben Carson, Byron Donaldson, to mention only a few.

You know them.

Have they been right all along?

The history of Blacks in the majority white Republican party is rife with anecdotes about the ongoing struggle within that party to guarantee Blacks a seat at the table; to share the power. Kudos to all those who have stayed the course since the 1860s: the Lincoln Republicans, the Eisenhower and Nixon Republicans, the Rockefeller Republicans, the Reagan Republicans, Bush I and II Republicans, and now the Trump Republicans.

The majority minority Democratic party has been accused of taking Black folk for granted since Roosevelt’s New Deal, continuing to raise the question, “what have they done for me lately?”, especially amongst younger, Black males. It is noteworthy to remember that most of the “Great Society’ programs, civil rights gains, and nearly universal healthcare coverage have been under Democratic leadership.

But does that matter anymore?

There are new metrics which measure access and adjacency to power: having equitable inclusion in the economic marketplace, freedom from foreign wars, personal safety in our homes/workplace, freedom from government regulations in our personal lives, to name a few.

Are those Republican or Democratic ideals? Are those white or “colored” platforms?

No, but the closer to being “white,” i.e., worshiping in the right churches, living in the right neighborhood, attending the right school, and not rocking any sacred boats, puts one closer to the power caste.

Is that all there is? Apparently so, according to the behavior of the electorate in 2024. Moving forward, we must all find something to stand for and continue to rise into our fullness as US citizens, regardless of who has been elected to the highest office.

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