The Democrats need black voters to win, the Republicans do not. Yet the Party continues to alienate black people. North Carolina’s repeal of the bathroom bill ended a year of controversy in that state over the rights of transgender people. But the central, largely overlooked lesson is this: Although North Carolina is engaged in an ongoing assault on people of color, it was bathrooms – bathrooms! – that inspired moral outrage from white liberals. Not undermining voting rights of black people, or striking at their ability to make a living. Only when legislators aimed at (white) transgender people did the outrage – and boycotts – begin.
Black people noticed. The Democratic/Obama coalition of the political left will die if white liberals continue to ignore their black coalition partners.The Republicans face no such danger.
Like teachers ignoring the playground bully, our politics have normalized bigotry against black people. It’s time to demand more support from white liberals who were the first to protest on behalf of transexual rights, but who routinely take our votes and our issues for granted. If the Democratic coalition is to survive, true coalition with black voters must be exchanged for political exploitation.
There were no grand displays of solidarity before a US Court of Appeals ruled that North Carolina was essentially trying to block black people from voting, the most fundamental of rights. Judge Diana Motz concluded that many provisions of the 2013 bill targeted “African-Americans with almost surgical precision.” The impact was real. By one estimate, black turnout during 2016 early voting was off by about 66,000 votes, compared to 2012.
The resistance inspired by the HB 2 “bathroom bill” was not on behalf of people of color, although they were primary targets of the bill’s vitriol. HB 2 explicitly hindered entrepreneurs of color from creating jobs and wealth by attacking minority set-aside programs across the state. Cities in North Carolina would now be severely limited in their ability to ensure businesses owned by women and minorities received government contracts, which are often lucrative and disproportionately go to businesses owned by white men. Further, HB 2 included a provision which blocked local governments from raising the minimum wage for vulnerable, working people. Most of these workers are people of color and women.
None of this sparked the outrage of the political left. Yet the prospect that white trans people were denied choice in bathroom usage was responsible for the NCAA’s boycott of the state and emerged as a campaign issue that helped to oust North Carolina’s Republican governor. PayPal decided against its planned expansion in the state for the same reason. To be sure, there were some visionaries who saw the big picture. The North Carolina NAACP and its leaders, like Rev. William Barber, understood the full implications of HB 2 and rallied for all impacted parties. And yet if the bathroom provisions had been overturned and the others hindering black people from making a living had been left in place, it is doubtful that the resistance would endure.
The sudden outpouring of support for the trans community from the left does not even extend to black trans people, sadly. Whites have not raised their voices regarding the alarming level of violence plaguing black trans women. Just in the month of February alone, three black trans women were killed in Louisiana. Indeed, the life expectancy of a trans woman of color is well below the general population. Where is the outrage from those who claim to care about trans lives? Where is the social movement from the (white) left, en masse, responding to a crisis that is literally life-and-death? It simply does not exist. If black people do not sound an alarm the house remains quiet. Even so, black people are expected to stand on the front lines with our coalition partners on the left.
The Obama coalition is splintering and the left must wrestle with the implications. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by 11,000 votes, even though John Kerry won some 80,000 more votes in Wayne County alone than Clinton did. Clinton lost Wisconsin by 27,000 votes, while Obama won 43,000 more votes in Milwaukee County alone. Wayne and Milwaukee Counties are heavy centers of black population. The signs are there. The Democratic coalition is faltering and it must get serious about once again courting its most loyal partners. When black businesses and workers are under attack, the coalition must respond. When black voting rights are under siege, those same partners must respond just as blacks have for them. That is the difference between a true coalition and exploitation.
