Kali Nicole Gross: Black women are Obama’s most loyal voters — and his most ignored constituency

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Kali Nicole Gross: Black women are Obama’s most loyal voters — and his most ignored constituency

President Obama’s recent speech at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner called attention to the unique issues impacting black women. He acknowledged the onerous income disparities (making 64 cents for every dollar white men make), the debilitating sexual-abuse-to-prison pipeline (which turns victimized girls into convicts) and the disproportionate incarceration rate (black women are imprisoned at nearly three times the rate of white women).

Obama’s words were a welcome change for a president who has largely ignored black women’s struggles. But while Obama has finally drawn attention to our concerns, he offered no policies to address them. Instead, he has treated issues affecting black men as synonymous with those affecting the entire black community. Last year, for instance, Obama launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which dedicates federal dollars exclusively to assist at-risk black and Latino boys. In announcing the program, he said, “By almost every measure, the group that is facing some of the most severe challenges in the 21st century in this country are boys and young men of color.”

It’s a particularly troubling oversight given that black women have been Obama’s most loyal supporters at the ballot box. They accounted for 60 percent of all black voters in 2008 and supported Obama to the tune of 96 percent. In 2012, 98 percent of black women under 30 voted for Obama, compared to 80 percent of young black men.

African American women have benefited least from the economic recovery despite being among the most affected by recession. The foreclosure crisis hit them especially hard; black female borrowers were 256 percent more likely to receive a risky subprime loan than white men. And that’s not a result of their income status: Black women in upper income brackets are five times more likely than white men to have high-cost mortgages. Never mind that roughly one quarter of all black and Latino borrowers have lost their homes to foreclosure, with black women disproportionately represented among them.

Black women’s disadvantages start in childhood. Black children are more likely to be suspended from school than white children for the same behaviors, but that racial discrimination affects girls more than boys. While black boys are suspended three times more often than white boys, black girls are suspended six times more frequently than white girls. Black girls are now the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system.

It’s time for black women to reexamine their commitment to the Democratic Party. Perhaps we need to follow the former Democratic U.S. representative from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, who turned to the Green Party because the “white, rich Democratic boys club wanted me to stay in the back of the bus.” The other Green Party presidential candidate, Jill Stein, is also worth considering. Stein has be vocal about ending police brutality and mass incarceration and expanding women’s rights and access to education. Moreover, her “Power to the People Plan” comes a lot closer to directly addressing black women’s needs than other candidates’, particularly her call for single-payer public health insurance for all and a $15 per hour federal minimum wage.

We should demand that every candidate speak directly to black women’s issues and provide a blueprint for how they will address our needs. The issues that affect us – income equality, police brutality, criminal justice, racial profiling, domestic violence, reproductive justice, affordable housing and access to quality education – often affect black men or white women as well, but rarely in the same way or as severely. We need a president who not only understands that, but addresses it.

Ignoring a major constituency is politically unwise. Ignoring injustice is immoral.