They win the genetic jackpot with the gender and race cards, yet they still manage to Jussi..find something to complain about - so uppity. FML!
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More Black women are being elected to office. Few feel safe once they get there
Politics Jun 17, 2021 1:01 PM EDT
Every day for more than four years, Kiah Morris lived in fear. She developed a safety routine for her family with the help of an international security expert, installed security cameras outside their home and received firearms training.
When Morris took office as a Democratic state representative in Vermont in 2015, she was the first Black woman elected to the state’s legislature in 26 years. Her district was located in a county with an estimated population of 36,589 that was about 96 percent white, according to 2015 Census Bureau data.
It is mentally exhausting to live in constant fear, feeling like you’re in a state of constant fight or flight.
Morris said she entered public office as an advocate for marginalized communities, speaking candidly about racial justice and economic inequality. But the same advocacy that helped her get elected also put a target on her back.
Between 2016 and 2018, Morris, her husband and their neighbors reported at least 26 incidents to local police in which she and her family felt threatened, including suspicious vehicles parked outside Morris’ home, a break-in and theft from Morris’ car, and threatening online messages, according to a report issued by the Vermont attorney general’s office.
In 2016, police officers discovered neckties scattered in a cemetery near Morris’ home; her husband later reported that a number of his neckties were missing from their basement, the attorney general’s report said. That same year, Morris obtained a protective order against a self-proclaimed white supremacist who made it a priority, in his words, to “troll the hell out of” Morris online and at in-person events.
Ultimately, it all became too much. Morris announced her immediate resignation in a 2018 Facebook post, about three months before the end of her second term.
“It is mentally exhausting to live in constant fear, feeling like you’re in a state of constant fight or flight and not knowing who to trust,” Morris told the PBS NewsHour.
Morris’ experience is one shared by many Black women in politics. Black women have long faced challenges running for office for a variety of reasons, from a lack of access to fundraising or capital to a lack of internal support from their political parties, said Stefanie Brown James, co-founder of The Collective PAC, which advocates for Black Democratic candidates.
Across the country, groups like The Collective have tried to help Black women overcome those barriers, and the political sphere has slowly been diversifying. The current session of Congress began with a historic high of 26 Black women out of 535 voting members. A record nine Black women currently serve as mayors of the country’s largest 100 cities. This year, Kamala Harris became the country’s first woman, first Black and first Asian vice president.
Yet as many people celebrate this growing representation, women and people of color continue to bear the brunt of harassment and threats at all levels of government. The abuse is compounded for Black women, who experience both systemic racism and sexism. An Amnesty International study examining abusive tweets targeted at women journalists and politicians in the U.S. and U.K. in 2017 found that Black women were 84 percent “more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets.”
That reality may jeopardize further representation in politics by causing some Black women to step away from public office while making others hesitant to run in the first place. In Vermont, Morris and James said they know several other Black women who have left political and civic leadership roles due to harassment or threats.