Alabama Showed Us That All White People Must Do Better
According to reports, 74 percent of white men and 65 percent of white women voted for Roy Moore.
On Tuesday, Dec. 12, Alabama held their Senate election, which pitted Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones. The days, hours, minutes and seconds leading up to the event were tense, with millions across the nation hoping that a child molester who rode a horse to the election didn’t get put into office. His opponent, Jones, was angelic compared to his foe. The 63-year-old attorney seemed like the obvious choice not for political reasons, but for ethical ones.
Unlike his peer, Jones has been positive about the LGBT community and minorities, contrasting Moore, who said that America hasn’t been great since slavery. He also said that repealing amendments beyond the 10th would “eliminate many problems.” The 13th abolished slavery; the 15th gave people of color the right to vote; the 19th gave women the right to vote.
While Moore was busy looking for underage girls at shopping malls, Jones helped bring two members of the KKK to justice: Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry. Jones prosecuted these gentlemen for their involvement in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, a terrorist attack in 1963 that left four black girls dead and 22 others injured.
I kept tabs on the voting from start to finish. Twitter was a huge help, as was the New York Times. Watching everything unfold as a New York state resident led to the quick realization that many Moore’s voters have no idea what they’re doing; they just blindly followed because of his … “faith.” I’m not an expert, but I don’t think that God is accepting of child molesting racists. Fuck you if you voted for Roy Moore.
The voters for Jones, on the other hand, acknowledged that they were fighting the white devil. I’m not sure how much that played into the process, but it doesn’t matter. Voting for Doug Jones meant voting for basic morality.
At about 10:30 that evening, the Associated Press reported that Jones had come out victorious, pulling in 49.9 percent of the votes to Moore’s 48.4. The total count was 671,151 to 650,436, respectively. How did Moore amass so many votes, you ask? Well, the answer is relatively easy. It’s the deep south. Not all white people down there are ignorant, but a lot of them are. It’s an entirely different world because most of the populous have this irrational racism that somehow stifles everything else. I, as a white person, can say that a lot of individuals who share my skin color are trash. Not everyone is, though. And that’s a crucial distinction to make.
According to reports, 74 percent of white men and 65 percent of white women voted for Roy Moore. Ugh. Heavy sigh.
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE — 23 percent of white men and 32 percent of white women didn’t vote for that horse riding doofus. Unfortunately, it’s evident that the cancerous views we stereotype the south for are so prominent that whites aren’t able to defeat their own race. If it weren’t for black people, Alabama would look remarkably different right now.
According to those same reports, an astounding 92 percent of black men and 97 percent of black women voted for Doug Jones. Sensible whites across the nation need to thank black men and especially black women for saving us from ourselves.
Thank you.
Now, folks, we need to be about that action. Words don’t mean shit, honestly. Yes, “thank you,” sounds nice, but now we must use our white privilege to combat white privilege. Defeating Roy Moore is a step, but there’s still a race war sweeping the nation.
Black people are influential, as illustrated by this election. White people hold a lot of positions of power. That dominance can go one of two ways, depending on who’s in that situation. One way — which would better the nation — is for those individuals to put black people in positions similar to them so they can have a say on issues that matter.
Whites need to be ashamed of what happened in Alabama. It’s disgusting how low we set the bar for elected official. In the wake of that, I can’t stress enough how sincerely we need to thank people of color. And then we need to act on it. And then we need to repeat until the country is where it should be. Oh, and don’t champion assholes like Roy Moore.
Other Work: TBN Media | ESNY | The Unbalanced
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