I am in the 45%. How am I responsible for the 55%?

EMMA SUNKIN: I could finally exhale. The streets under my sister’s apartment in the West Village exploded with cheers and applause, honking cars and banging pots, shouts of joy and cries of relief. New York City was back, alive and well, and certainly nothing close to the “ghost town” Donald Trump called it. The world felt big again, but connected and whole. Our four years of terror were over. 

My dad was on the other line when CNN projected the results. A perfect coincidence and a moment of unity, both familial and beyond. “It’s over. Thank god. He is such a decent man,” we hear my dad affirm under true tears and pure exhaustion. It was a perfect moment for our family. 

The week leading up to November 7 felt like the cumulation of anxiety and pain I felt the past four years. It was an awful week for me, a white female college student in the United States. CNN’s chief national correspondent and electoral map wizard John King became like a father figure to me, and my dreams were transformed into nightmares of Clark County, Nevada turning red. I didn’t sleep much. But the projection changed everything, of course. The trip to visit my sister was no longer a necessary escape from my isolated stress, but now a vacation dedicated to celebration. We spent the day in Central Park and had an incredible victory dinner that night. Life felt fun and worthwhile for the first time since March, and especially since November 2016. 

Here we were: two white females, relieved and emotional and celebratory. But for what? Humanity finally revealing itself as “good?” Certainly, it felt that way at first, but by the end of the night, a user called @goddessmia20 popped up on my Tik Tok feed. She changed everything. 

Goddess Mia was a black woman hysterically crying. And let me clarify that these tears were not the same tears of relief I cried, but rather tears of pain and anguish. “I don't know why I'm so angry with the 55% of the white women who voted for Trump but I'm pissed. They talk to you guys like you are TRASH, and WE are always defending you. But you Karen us all the fucking time. We have been taking care of YOUR children for generations. We have been taking care of YOU. We fight for you, we march with you. And you guys are the MEANEST. I’m so mad, because look how they talk to you. And y’all couldn’t have the bravery to care about our lives. Im so disappointed, because I thought you guys were actually gonna change.”

Now my tears were no longer a sigh of relief, nor were they the tears of sadness and anger she cried; I was crying tears of guilt and shame. Yes, I voted for the Biden-Harris ticket, and yes, I phone-banked, and yes I donated, and yes I marched, and yes I interned on a small congressional campaign, but no, I didn’t have the hard conversations with my white counterparts. No, I didn’t do enough. 

55% of white women voted for Trump. 91% of black women voted for Biden. And the 45% of us who voted in honor of women’s rights, for human rights, we just did the bare minimum. There has been such a lack of cultural change in this country despite such incredible efforts and grassroots mobilization by communities of color, by women of color. 

Stacey Abrams is not a new name. But she is the name right now. Fair Fight 2020 precisely displays to the rest of us exactly why the 2020 election was not a simple victory. This country has always and continues to face horrifying short-comings in regard to women’s rights, civil rights, and most aggressively, the rights of women of color. Yet, black and brown women still fight to cure us all; women of color carry us ALL on their shoulders even when their lives are at stake and we can’t seem to do enough. 

Among those of us in the 45%, we didn’t break out, we didn’t infiltrate the 55% of white women in this country who continue to betray all of our values. We simply did not do our jobs. Now is not the time to virtue signal or make nods by proving our solidarity. It is time for us to mobilize, take on our role, and change for the women of color who have saved us once again. 

Emma Sunkin is a sophomore in Georgetown College double majoring in Government and Psychology.