The White Allyship Ceiling
Photo by Eric Yeich from Pexels
After a marathon of a campaign season, followed by a never-ending five-day extended election, I made sure to take time to celebrate Joe Biden’s win.
Like many other Americans, I felt an apocalyptic level of anxiety facing all the things riding on this election; action against climate change, student debt reform, accessible healthcare – just to name a few. So, when the AP finally called the election in favor of Joe Biden, I decided to make space for joy before hopping straight into accountability and next steps. It’s been a week now though, and as I cool down from my victory lap, I can’t help but wonder: where the fuck were white people?
At the time of writing, Joe Biden received a historical 78,975,825 votes, but what’s impossible to ignore is the fact that Donald Trump still managed to receive 73,288,034 votes of his own. While Joe Biden amassed the most votes in history, Donald Trump amassed the second most and that’s a cause for concern.
This year saw the meteoric rise of a Civil Rights Resurgence – protestors took to the streets in demand of racial equity and systemic change. Some of the protests broke into violence, some of the protests lead to change. We all watched our feeds and timelines flood with academic resources, mutual fund donation links, and promises of “listening and learning.” It seemed as though white people were truly listening for the first time, and amidst all the despair and mourning, there was a glimmer of hope that we were on the road to real change.
So, what happened? Despite all the white awakening this summer, Trump still performed better with white women this year than he did in 2016. While he lost ground with white men, he still definitively won their demographic as well. While we can certainly attribute some of those 73 million votes to increased Republican support from minority communities, I’m specifically asking questions about The Whites™, who make up about 67% of voters and swore that this year was the year they’d start putting the work in.
If the Trump Administration were a TV show, 2020 has been the no-expense-spared final season. From the racial demonstrations to the 250,000 Americans dead from a grossly mishandled pandemic, this year has been the best display of Trump’s ineptitude, deception, and racism – and yet white people stepped up and asked for a second helping. Though I can’t point at any immediate explanation for this behavior, I find my mind drifting to all those well-intentioned white allies from the summer; the ones who sent Venmo payments as reparations and studied Me and White Supremacy as if it were scripture. For all their public acknowledgement of privilege and wanting to do better, I think about their private lives. How have our allies been handling themselves when they’re alone with their conservative family members? My suspicion is that it’s looked a lot like it did in 2016: silence.
Recently, I had a coworker describe how she was hanging out with her friends when the election results were called. She said it was so awkward because all of her friends, save one, are liberal. They tried not to celebrate too hard in front of her Republican friend. White privilege is not only feeling comfortable and safe with those that support a blatantly racist and sexist arbiter of fascism – it’s actively protecting their feelings. I suspect that my coworker is not the only white person who spent the past few months very vocally opposing the Trump administration, just to become immediately reticent when confronting the Trump supporters in their intimate circles. It’s this white silence that helped put Trump in the White House in 2016, and despite all the virtuous showboating this summer, it’s what helped him net 73 million votes this time around.
The ceiling of white allyship is based off of white people’s unwillingness to feel (and stay) uncomfortable. To truly commit oneself to the dismantling of white supremacy is to condemn those who actively benefit from it and choose to relish in those benefits. It is to acknowledge that a vote for Trump – regardless of what reason motivated that vote – is a vote against many vulnerable groups in favor of harmful, self-serving reasons. Those conversations don’t appear to be being had. To actively campaign against white supremacy is to actively campaign against one’s family, and the destruction of white supremacy is going to result in the destruction of some white allies’ closest relationships. The cost of friends and family is a price that it seems many of them are not yet willing to pay. And so, while we move forward with a Biden presidency secured, I move forward tentatively. While there were contributions from the white community, it seems that once again, people of color – specifically Black people, specifically Black women – will be left to do the majority of the heavy lifting in the fights ahead. And while I’m both disappointed and exhausted, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Imani Vaughn-Jones
Atlanta-based actress and writer. Firm believer in active love and the Oxford comma. The world is your oyster — grab some hot sauce.