Black people saved America in 2020. We might not be there next time

Justin Phillips - November 12, 2020

As word spread Saturday morning that Joe Biden had secured enough electoral votes to become the 46th president of the United States, cars driving past my Oakland apartment were honking their horns and blasting songs like Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.”

Within a few hours, masked people were hugging in the street and dancing. It felt like a socially distanced block party. And the theme song for it, based on the number of times I heard it played through nearby apartment windows, was “FDT” by rap artists YG and the late Nipsey Hussle. (“DT” stands for Donald Trump; you can imagine what the “F” stands for.)

Everyone around me was happy. Yet all I wanted to do was sleep.

I’m exhausted. My friends, my family, every Black person I know at this point in 2020 is just tired. That’s because as much as America seems to be celebrating right now, Black folks know 2020 has been a year of unprecedented pain and struggle for our people. Even before the pandemic, the Black community, especially in California, was dealt a significant blow with the death of former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, and his daughter, in a January helicopter crash.

We were still coming to grips with that when the pandemic started. Almost overnight we became the face of the disease in the Bay Area. State public health data in May showed we were dying from COVID-19 at a rate twice as high as any other race.

Shelter-in-place orders crippled the Black-owned small business economy in California and across the country. Job losses were high. We were scared over the health of our communities.

Then George Floyd was killed.

Yet, when it came to the presidential election, Black people put their pain and anger for this year aside to vote Donald Trump out of office. Joe Biden secured 87% of the Black vote, according to Edison Research numbers. Even with all of what happened to the Black community, my people, one of the most disenfranchised groups in this country, took on the task of dragging America toward progress. This role isn’t unfamiliar to us.

We’ve been battling to improve this country, often against the desires of white people, since the 1800s, when Black abolitionists worked to end slavery through resistance and rebellion. From the 1940s through the ’60s, Black Americans led the civil rights movement in America. Fast-forward to 2008 and it was young Black voters who participated in the election in greater proportions than whites for the first time, according to Census Bureau data, to elect the nation’s first Black president.

In 2020, Black people amplified calls for police reform through the Black Lives Matter movement. Those Confederate monuments that were pulled down in places like Alabama and South Carolina because they were symbols of America’s dark legacy of slavery? Black people made that happen. We’re stuck in a cycle of saving this country from itself. But America has always been slow to care as aggressively about its Black populace.

What if we aren’t in the mood to do it next time?

Against the backdrop of a racial reckoning, white America showed us that it was fine with the direction this country was heading under Trump, with the rise of white nationalists, a crumbling economy, poor pandemic response, racist rhetoric and all. Trump has reportedly already said he plans to run again for president in 2024. He’ll have a base of supporters waiting — according to election poll data, 58% of white people in America voted to re-elect Donald Trump this year. It can feel like the Black community’s cries are falling on more deaf ears than we ever realized.

The country works best when Black people can consider at least a majority of white America as allies. Based on this election, we know that can’t be a reality. It’s frustrating. It’s disappointing. It’s tiring.

I thought about this Sunday afternoon when white people in my neighborhood were partying and riding bikes all over while holding Biden and Harris signs. It was a celebration for them.

But all that bounced around my mind was how some of my Black friends in places like Louisiana and Florida wondered whether they needed to arm themselves before voting. Simply going to a polling place felt like a matter of life and death. They went anyway, caring less about themselves and more about the future of this country, a country that doesn’t always seem to have our well-being in mind.

One friend took his children with him when he went to vote in Texas this year. His kids are too young to understand the election process, but he explained as much as he could. He felt it was important for them to see it in action. When I caught up with him, he wasn’t celebrating. Instead, he was at home, “finally getting some sleep.”

I understood. Hopefully America will too the next time it expects the Black community to bail us all out.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips

-Greg