Of those who voted in the presidential election, 94 percent of Black women and 68 percent of Latina women voted for Hillary. Fifty-three percent of white women voted for Trump.
Of those who voted in the Alabama special election, 98 percent of Black women voted for Doug Jones, while 63 percent of white women voted for Roy Moore. White women, we have a problem.
I get why white men in Alabama voted for Moore. He pulled a gun at a rally and rode a horse to cast his vote. Yes, he looked like the last horse he was on was one he paid a nickel to ride at a drugstore, but still. White men could look at him and say, “YES! He’s just like me! I also want to go back to a time when we could own people and slap strange women on the ass and not have to think or talk about the gay thing because it makes me feel squeegy inside.”
I get that. But white women? Moore has been accused by nine women of various egregious acts of assholery including groping and attempting to have sex with a 14-year old, unwanted kissing, and attempting to force fellatio.
NINE women. And 63 percent of white women in Alabama voted for him.
You can throw a good percentage of those votes toward tribalism and the fact that Trump’s base gets their information from his Twitter feed, Breitbart, Fox News, and The Angry Guy at the End of the Bar Who Continues to Use “Oriental” Incorrectly.
Some of it is just straight-up racism. Some percentage of white women in Alabama heard Roy Moore say things were better during slavery and thought, “I DO hate vacuuming, and the Roomba just doesn’t cut it in corners. I’ll throw my vote to the pedophile.”
But no matter their situation, all the white women who voted for Roy Moore made one of two estimations: Either all of Roy Moore’s accusers are lying, or what he did was okay.
I sort of get the lying thing. Bitches be lyin’, you guys. I mean, I remember this one time this guy approached me and asked, “Will you lie and say this guy raped you so we can keep him from getting elected?” and I asked “What’s in it for me?” and he said, “$1,000,” and I asked, “Will anything bad happen to me?” and he said, “You will be attacked by the right-wing media and probably get death threats and called a whore and you’ll never be able to be on social media again without someone telling you to kill yourself and it might keep you from getting jobs and you could be sued for slander and maybe go to jail if the police get involved, but other than that, probably not,” and I said, “I’m IN!”
But as for those who think what Roy Moore did was okay, I’d like to say this: Sometimes I hate myself, too. Sometimes I eat terrible things and lament the size of my thighs and my weird toenails and my anxious brain and my inability to meet a deadline. I struggle every day with learning to forgive myself because I’ve internalized much of the same misogynist bullshit that you have. But even so, I’d never believe that the pain of another woman or teenage girl was acceptable collateral damage in a congressional election.
You need to ask yourself why Black women in Alabama believe and care what happened to those nine white women more than you did. And probably see a therapist. Because, JFC.
Hey Courtenay I’m glad someone commented on the white women voters of Alabama. I know the Mercury sometimes reprints articles from it’s sister papers, so I don’t know if you are local or not, but the same thing would go down in Portland with white women voters if it were to happen here. In fact, one could argue Oregon is even worse than Alabama. We had a male state legislator harass several women state legislators of equal status and one of higher status (Tina Kotec) and NOTHING was done about it for months or was it years??? Only one and just one of these harassed female legislators made a complaint before others were willing to step forward and admit they were harassed, including the Speaker of the State House of Legislators of Oregon, Tina Kotec. If that isnt leadership on white women taking sexual harassment then I don’t know what it is. Throw in the fact that Kotec is imfamously known as being lesbian and (in many peoples minds, I assume,) not seeking male sexual advances from legislators or non-legislators.
I agree it is damn sick to vote for men who force sex on women and 14 year olds and watch oldwo white women basically say “men gotta do what men gotta do. We don’t give a fuck about ourselves. White skin and white rights supercede sexual harrasment and womens rights”.