Proxy Power: White Women as the foot-soldiers of White Supremacy

Behind Every Great Man There’s a Great Woman.

The unflappable Elizabeth Eckford (aged 15) walks into Little Rock High School while white women and girls including Hazel Bryan (also aged 15) stare and jeer menacingly. Bryan was removed from Little Rock by her parents and years later apologized for her behavior to Eckford. (image Copyright Bettmann/Getty Images)

On 8 November 2016 Americans went to the polls and elected Hillary Clinton to the Presidency. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by roughly 2.8 million votes and surpassed the number of votes earned by any white man in American history. She carried African Americans by 89%, Hispanic and Asian voters by 66 and 65% respectively, 18–29 year olds by 55%, 30–44 year olds by 51%, households with incomes of less than $50k yearly by 53% and women overall by 54%. Her victory was sweeping. But she did not win whites. And although she captured some 94% of African American women’s votes white women went 53% to Trump.

The census bureau estimates that white non-Hispanics make up about 60% of the American population. That means that white men make up less than 30% of the American population. Yet, as I have repeatedly written, white men hold a super majority of Senate and House seats and of the 44 Presidents who have or are serving 43 of them have been white men. If society was logical — if people were logical — white women would have all voted for Hillary Clinton. It would have been impossible for the Electoral College and Russia and GOP voter suppression tactics to have altered the 2016 election simply because at a point the number and ratio of votes becomes insurmountable…