In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, an unflinching ninety-two percent of Black women cast their votes for Kamala Harris, a demonstration of political solidarity and agency. For many of us, this overwhelming support was not just about party affiliation or even political certainty — it was deeply personal. It represented a conclusion of historical struggles, a demand for racial and gender justice, and a long overdue expression of self-care that goes beyond well-being.
With the help of the majority of white women, Donald Trump, a convicted felon, was elected to the highest office in the land. Again. The morning after the election, it felt like a huge slap in the face. A disproportionate number of Black people have lost many rights, including access to certain jobs, student loans, housing, and the right to vote, for committing lesser crimes.
Watching MAGA white women continue to support white men failing upwards, while Black people experience harsher treatment and are held to impossible standards of perfection was just the last straw. As the election results settled, Black women began to take a closer look at the cost of what our support.
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” — Zora Neale Hurston
Black women have long been at the forefront of political movements in America, from the abolitionist movement to the civil rights struggle and beyond. We’ve also consistently been a political force, with our perspectives shaped by centuries of oppression. The overwhelming support for Kamala Harris, a daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, as the first woman of South Asian and African descent elected as vice president, was a reflection of that long legacy of activism and the desire for representation at the highest level.
In this election, Black women’s intentions didn’t waver. We were fighting to end police violence, the economic disparities still exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the broader movement for racial justice. We weren’t just voting for Kamala Harris as a symbol of progress but as someone who, as a former prosecutor and U.S. senator, might enact meaningful change on issues that directly impact our lives and communities.
For us, Kamala Harris’ campaign was about advancing a specific set of priorities — racial justice, gender equity, and economic empowerment. She has advocated for criminal justice reform, women’s rights, and issues such as healthcare access, affordable housing, and workers’ rights. These issues aligned with the concerns that shape Black people’s everyday lives.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” — Audre Lorde
For Black women, self-care is a political act. The stress of navigating a society that often marginalizes us, combined with the weight of historical trauma, has made the need for collective well-being even more crucial. This form of self-care goes beyond pampering or rest; it is about collective healing and empowerment.
The nintey-two percent of Black women who voted for Kamala Harris have basically said, “Get somebody else to do it.” When Donald Trump won the election, it was a gut-punch that our voices and concerns didn’t matter.
Many MAGA white women have been shedding weaponized tears because they now see that the majority of us have given up on any alliance with them. We no longer have the energy to invest. We’re tired of being ignored and having our concerns minimized.
We’re exhausted from having to demand that everything we say and do be inclusive of everyone, only to be excluded and ignored over and over again. We’re tired of being brought in for certain jobs only when things are a mess, expected to work miracles to fix them. We’re tired of being America’s cleanup crew. We’re tired of always taking the high road while others take the low road and put us in danger.
We’re tired of trying to help white women understand that affirmative action, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and Title IX have disproportionately benefited them. We’re tired of trying to explain that abortion care is part of lifesaving health care. We’re tired of explaining that Obamacare is the same as the Affordable Care Act. We’re tired of laying out how efforts to dismantle the Department of Education will harm their children too.
Black women spent much of the last few centuries taking care of white people — either by force or necessity. For generations, Black women have had to accommodate to white people’s feelings, for our own survival.
Black women have just tapped out. We don’t have the mental or physical capacity to deal with it anymore, so we are prioritizing ourselves. We’re taking the flowing cape off and sitting down somewhere. We have multi-generational memories of white women’s tears causing terror, violence, and oppression in Black communities which have led to dismantling of systems.
December 2, 2024, marked the National Day of Rest for Black women to regroup and recharge. We realize that taking time for ourselves and not all women might hurt some white women’s feelings. But right now, and for the foreseeable future, we have nothing left to give.
