Is It True That Voters Don’t Believe ‘Black Women Can Lead’?

Stacey Abrams, who has run for governor of Georgia twice, is speaking out about the misconceptions surrounding Black women in leadership.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Abrams discussed the lack of Black women in the United States Senate, saying that it is simply not the desire of the electorate to have proper representation of Black women in major political roles, according to the Daily Caller. “Black women are seen as useful and necessary in propping up and supporting most of the facets of American society. But we’re rarely seen as capable of actually leading. And part of our responsibility both as Democrats but more broadly as Americans is to widen our aperture and to understand that Black women can lead,” Abrams said. 

With a choice to be made on who will be in line to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2024, Abrams says now, more than ever, is the time to do away with any notion that Black women are ill-equipped to hold down executive positions.

According to the Daily Caller, Abrams believes that there is already a more than capable candidate to fill the vacancy. “I’ve endorsed Barbara Lee … she is certainly a representative of the Black community she has also been just a stalwart for progressive issues for more than 35 years,” she said. But the author and newly appointed Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics at Howard University feels it will take an unmoving commitment to equality from voters and leaders to see lasting change. “I believe that if we want a truly representative society, if we want diversity to be more than a tag line we’ve got to do the work — that sometimes means we have to not vote for our friends, or we have to vote for one friend over the other in order to make representation real,” she said.

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