vice president Kamala Harris lost his campaign for president overnight, breaking the hearts of many, including my wife Caron and four-year-old daughter Cross, who have advocated fiercely for his victory from the beginning. They are gutted, their spirits are low; my spirit is down. The United States’ decision is repugnant. But we are still America. We are still here and the fight for freedom must continue. We must move forward.

To be completely honest, seeing a man who is proud that women have the right to choose what to do with their own bodies in 2024 win a national election is beyond devastating. It shows that our country has no interest in loving women. To think that women in America are CEOs, top doctors at elite medical institutions, judges, mechanics, bodybuilders and astronauts: women give birth to us, raise us and have proven that they have the power to do anything they want. a man can do. That they still can’t claim the title of president is beyond me. The only word that comes to mind is sad.

As I watch my wife and daughter process the results, I hurt for them. This reminds me of what it would have meant to them for a black woman to claim her seat in the White House. What it would have meant to me. Because I admit, I didn’t always understand the power of symbolism.

As a child born in the 1980s, I was not taught to pay attention to the strangulation that patriarchy has on women. We boys were taught to exist as men and stand by that, to hold on to the idea that we are leaders and authority figures, even if we didn’t earn it. Questions about qualifications didn’t even cross our minds.

And even when we grew up and some of us started to identify as good guys, we probably still talked about women or questioned the things we learned about them, treating them in a way that we simply wouldn’t treat a man. It is very likely that our jobs would have been given to more qualified women. But these things don’t cross our minds because they don’t have to. I started learning about the role gender plays in my place in society in high school. Trump is over 70 years old and still doesn’t understand it, but he becomes president; If privilege were a person, it would be.

As I grew older, I actively worked to unlearn this inherited behavior. It wasn’t until I settled in with my wife Caron and started building a house that I realized the problem was worse than I imagined. Watching Caron navigate her profession opened my eyes to how patriarchy can affect a woman every day of her life.

Like Harris, Caron is an attorney, HBCU graduate, and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister. She has been talking about what was on the other side of that glass ceiling since the day the vice president announced her candidacy. Like Harris, Caron has led organizations, led large teams, and earned her way to the top, but her achievements have not been recognized in the same way that a man’s would be. It’s a reality she shares with many women: She’s always called to solve the problem and rarely gets credit after doing so.

Harris represented the idea of ​​overcoming all of that and I pray that we don’t lose that feeling. Seeing Caron’s enthusiasm for Harris transmit to our four-year-old daughter, Cross, was magical. Throughout the campaign season, Cross marched around the house saying, “Don Trumpet is a bad boy. He will lose. Comma-la will win, win, win!

When we first heard our daughter’s anti-Trump rant earlier in the year, when Vice President Harris became the presumptive nominee, we laughed, not knowing where it was coming from. Perhaps her feisty grandmothers on both sides, who were also waiting for this day, taught her that. As November 5 approached, Cross’s convictions grew stronger.

“Donald Trumpet is a nasty man, he’s trash,” Cross shouted in her sweet little voice. “Comma-la will win!”

And now we have to sit down with her and tell her that America elected a person who is anti-woman. What hurts the most is that I hear men, so-called progressives, defend women every day without doing anything meaningful to help them navigate sexist spaces. Male leaders across demographic groups talk about the power of women, but do they give them space? They champion women in leadership as an idea, but what do they do to make it a reality? I watched black and brown men, from my own community, who were raised by their single mothers and single grandmothers, shout “Trump!” I don’t understand. Are they delusional, hate women, or both?

This loss is even more personal for me, considering the battles I saw many women in my life undertake.

As a teenager, I watched my mother, a talented phlebotomist, be robbed of promotions at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she worked for 20 years. She was often responsible for training the person who would supervise her. I watched my grandmother lead our family full of dysfunctional men who were completely lost after her death. While she was alive, she was never recognized for her leadership. They both had to find a way to survive in Trump’s America. Unfortunately, we are still there. What’s even sadder is that I wasn’t surprised.

Throughout this entire campaign, Caron and Cross remained more than confident. The two of them were delicate as bombs whenever they saw someone show the slightest uncertainty. I couldn’t help but be skeptical, though, because I remember back in 2016 thinking Hillary Clinton was going to have this moment. His skill set says he should have won, but the United States has a history of getting it wrong. In 2016, we got it very wrong. So yes, I was terrified.

I was terrified because America has a way of ignoring blatant racism. As if Trump had never released that ad advocating the execution of the Central Park 5; as if he hadn’t flirted with Nazi-style images and references; like I never said there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville even though one side came together to celebrate and praise hate; as if he had never called countries full of proud people of color idiots. I was terrified.

Democrats’ low morale as Biden ran for re-election was disturbing. There was no energy, little celebrity movement, few campaign signs and cheeky bumper stickers. It seemed like we weren’t in election season and that was terrifying. Political conversations in my friend groups, which are full of hard-working people who care about the progress of this country, ended with nothing but shrugs about voting for Biden again. No one was offering to host a campaign dinner, no one was sporting a Biden hoodie, and definitely no one was sending emails or knocking on doors.

But smart people know that emotion wins elections. And Trump had all the emotion until the Kamala effect.

It was eye-opening when Harris announced her candidacy and a collection of blue and white campaign signs flooded every liberal district, seemingly overnight. She showed a taste of Obama’s sentiment from 2008: hope. An infinite amount of hope. I matched the energy of my wife and daughter and bought.

When Obama was elected, I was naive about political power. He believed his election would erase racism and force oppressors to see their mistakes. I foolishly thought that her acceptance meant we were all being accepted, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The country accepted it, but we did not. He was special. We were exactly the same. He experienced a revolution in his own home, life and legacy that we celebrate from the same places of uncertainty where we remain.

That’s the feeling I had as a man. I can only imagine how black women felt, having to deal with double oppression.

I was equally naïve after Trump’s first term, thinking his presidency would bring about the collapse of our country. Although his mishandling of COVID and his hateful, divisive rhetoric left us with eternal scars, we are still here. We did it. Hopefully my wife and I can show our daughter that she will make it.

Eight years of President Obama and four years of Trump have taught me that the goals I expected from my leader had to be realistic, not some leftist dream utopia full of reparations and universal freedom or instant destruction, as a result of chaotic racism. .

No leader will ever be too bad or too good. The only thing guaranteed is that we have to show up and fight. We will unite, vote and continue to defend women as a family.

I don’t want to waste this special moment by getting lost in the reality of surviving Trump. Kamala Harris was elected vice president. This is proof that we are moving in the right direction, even as we prepare to weather this setback.

His journey and leadership will continue to inspire my family as we prepare for what is to come. And until we find out what that is, we will be fighting: for you, for us, and for America.