vice-president Kamala Harris lost his campaign for president overnight, breaking the hearts of many people, including my wife Caron and my four-year-old daughter Cross, both of whom staunchly defended his victory from the start. They are empty, their morale is at its lowest; my morale is at its lowest. The American decision is nauseating. But we are still America. We are still here and the fight for freedom must continue. We must move forward.

To be completely honest, seeing a man who proudly opposes women’s right to choose what to do with their own bodies in 2024 win a national election is beyond devastating. This proves that our country has no interest in loving women. In America, women are CEOs, top doctors at elite medical institutions, judges, mechanics, bodybuilders and astronauts – women give birth to us, they raise us and have proven themselves to have the power to do all that that a man can do. That they still can’t claim the title of president is beyond me. The only word that comes to mind is sad.

As I watch my wife and daughter analyze the results, I ache for them. It reminds me of what it would have meant to them to have a black woman claim her seat in the White House. What it would have meant to me. Because I admit, I haven’t always understood the power of symbolism.

As a boy born in the 1980s, I was not taught to pay attention to the patriarchy’s hold on women. We boys learned to exist as men and defend it, to maintain the idea that we are leaders and authority figures, even if we didn’t earn it. Questions about qualifications didn’t even cross our minds.

And even as we grew up and some of us began to identify as nice men, we probably continued to talk about women or question the things we had learned about them – to treat them in a way that we simply wouldn’t do for a man. Chances are our positions at work could have gone to more qualified women. But these things do not occur to us because they are not obligatory. I began to learn about the role gender plays in my place in society in high school. Trump is 70 and he still doesn’t get it, but he becomes president – ​​if privilege were a person, he would be.

As I grew older, I actively worked to unlearn this inherited behavior. It wasn’t until I moved in with my wife Caron and started building a house that I realized the problem was worse than I imagined. Watching Caron navigate her profession opened my eyes to how patriarchy can affect a woman every day of her life.

Like Harris, Caron is an attorney, HBCU graduate, and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister. She’s been talking about what’s on the other side of that glass ceiling since the day the vice president announced her candidacy. Like Harris, Caron has led organizations, led large teams, and worked his way to the top, but his accomplishments have not been recognized in the same way as those of a man. It’s a reality she shares with many women: She’s always called upon to solve the problem and rarely gets credit for doing it.

Harris represented the idea of ​​overcoming all of this, and I pray we don’t lose that feeling. Seeing Caron’s enthusiasm for Harris trickle down to our four-year-old daughter, Cross, was magical. Throughout the campaign trail, Cross paraded around the house declaring, “Don Trumpet is a bad boy. He’s going to lose. Comma will win, win, win! »

The first time we heard our daughter’s anti-Trump speech earlier this year, around the time Vice President Harris became the presumptive nominee, we laughed, not knowing where it came from was coming. Perhaps his feisty grandmothers on both sides, who were also waiting for this day, taught him that. As November 5 approached, Cross’s convictions grew stronger.

“Donald Trumpet is a bad man, he’s trashy,” Cross shouted in his sweet little voice. “Comma is going to win!” »

And now we have to sit him down and tell him that America chose an anti-woman person. What hurts even more is that I hear men – so-called progressives – defending women every day without doing anything meaningful to help propel them into sexist spaces. Male leaders across all demographics talk about the power of women, but are they holding space for them? They promote the idea of ​​women in leadership, but what are they doing to make it a reality? I have seen black and brown men, from my own community, raised by their single mothers and single grandmothers, shout “Trump! I don’t understand. Are they delusional, or do they hate women, or both?

This loss is even more personal to me, given the struggles I have seen many women go through in my life.

As a teenager, I watched my mother, a talented phlebotomist, get passed over for promotions at Johns Hopkins Hospital where she worked for 20 years. She was often responsible for training the person who would supervise her. I watched my grandmother lead our family full of dysfunctional men who were completely lost after her death. During her lifetime, she was never recognized for her leadership. They both had to find a way to survive in Trump’s America. Unfortunately, we are still there. What’s even sadder is that I wasn’t surprised.

Throughout this campaign, Caron and Cross remained more than confident. Both men were delicate as bombs whenever they saw someone display the slightest uncertainty. However, I couldn’t help but be skeptical, because I remember back in 2016 thinking that Hillary Clinton was going to have this moment. Her skills indicate she should have won, but America has a habit of being wrong. In 2016, we got it completely wrong. So yes, I was terrified.

I was terrified because America tends to ignore blatant racism. As if Trump had never released that ad calling for the execution of Central Park 5; as if he hadn’t flirted with Nazi-style imagery and references; as if he never said there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville, even if one of them united in celebrating and praising hatred; as if he never called countries full of proud people of color assholes. I was terrified.

The low morale among Democrats as Biden ran for re-election was haunting. There was no energy, few celebrity moves, few campaign signs and cheeky stickers. It felt like we weren’t in an election period and it was terrifying. Political conversations in my friend groups, which are filled with hard-working people who care about the progress of this country, have ended with nothing more than shrugs about voting for Biden again . No one was proposing to have a campaign dinner, no one was wearing a Biden hoodie, and certainly no one was sending emails or knocking on any doors.

But smart people know that enthusiasm wins elections. And Trump had all the excitement until the Kamala Effect.

It was telling when Harris announced her candidacy and a series of blue and white campaign signs flooded every liberal precinct, seemingly overnight. She gave a taste of that 2008 Obama feeling: hope. An infinite amount of hope. I compared my wife and daughter on energy and agreed.

When Obama was elected, I was naive about political power. I believed that his election would erase racism and force the oppressors to admit their mistakes. I foolishly thought his acceptance meant we were all accepted, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The country accepted it, but not us. He was special. We were exactly the same. He experienced a revolution in his own home, his life and his legacy that we celebrate from the same places of uncertainty where we remain.

This is the feeling I came away with as a man. I can only imagine how black women feel, facing double oppression.

I was equally naive after Trump’s first term, thinking his presidency would lead to the collapse of our country. Even though his mishandling of COVID and his hateful, divisive speech have left us with eternal scars, we are still here. We succeeded. I hope my wife and I can show our daughter that she can do it.

Eight years under President Obama and four years under Trump taught me that the goals I expected from my leader had to be realistic, not some dreamy left-wing utopia full of reparations, universal freedom or instant destruction, the result of chaotic racism. .

No leader will ever be too bad or too good. The only thing guaranteed is that we have to show up and fight. We will come together, we will vote, and we will continue to stand up for women as a family.

I don’t want to lose this special moment by getting lost in the reality of surviving Trump. Kamala Harris was elected vice president. This is proof that we are moving in the right direction, even as we prepare to overcome this setback.

His journey and leadership will continue to inspire my family as we prepare for what’s next. And until we understand what that is, we will fight – for you, for us, and for America.