Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
There is a spark in the air and a renewed hope for America’s future. The thought of Kamala Harris making history as the first female president of the United States, as a Black and South Asian American is galvanizing women of color across the nation, who finally feel seen and heard. We are witnessing record-breaking organizing around her candidacy that has fired up everyone from the grassroots to grass tops. It started with over 44,000 Black women who broke Zoom and has been followed by a succession of enormous calls by many other affinity groups coalescing behind her.
As two directors of organizations that focus on supporting Indigenous women and women of color in civic leadership, this is what we know: We are going to make a just and livable world for us, we promise you. As women of color, we have been training for generations to reimagine our world, and we are in a moment where only inclusive leadership and an expansive joining in are going to save our democracy.
Scholar and democracy advocate Dr. Danielle Allen, writing in an op-ed for the Washinton Post, paints a picture of this brittle democracy, comparing it to an old, well-built house that is neglected and in disrepair. The floorboards clank loose, the cold drafts blow through cracked windows, the lead pipes leak. It also houses exponentially more people than it was built for. We are all in here, uncomfortable together. But while a few lucky ones live in the upper floors, with sitting rooms and clawfoot tubs, most are crammed in the basement, with the mice and the black mold. We are bursting at the seams, and we are turning on each other.
We experience the stresses from these pain points via polarization, divisiveness, toxicity, misinformation, distrust of each other and our political institutions, and government dysfunction,” Allen wrote. We must, therefore, set our collective eye on the prize of integration, unity, safety, truth, trust in each other and our institutions, and functional government. This is the future we are dreaming up, and we need leaders who can foster meaningful dialogue, engage with citizens across various demographics, and work towards consensus-building rather than polarization.
We have just the people for the job. We understand that getting our leaders elected is not enough; we also need to protect and grow all the critical roles these leaders play and the ways they are contributing to the fabric of our future. Only if we can keep these leaders safe, resourced and connected will their impact deliver us a reimagined democracy. The conditions they work under, especially at the state and local levels often bring very low salaries, some of the highest threats of violence against their lives, along with the marginalization of their ideas, voices, policies and placements on powerful committees. This leads them to grapple with a number of internal challenges, such as imposter syndrome, self-doubt, PTSD and burnout as they navigate a hostile working environment.
It’s time to change those environments. Almost 250 years after our founding documents were drafted with zero input from us, we live in a house where most of us are women and people of color, but still, this house is not for us. In 2022, 52% of U.S. children were Black or brown, and by 2050 that number will be 61%. Despite being half of the population, only 29% of Congress members are women. And, despite being 20% of the population, only 12% of them are women of color. Even as elected officials, hired by voters the same as any of their other elected colleagues, women of color are often treated like an add-on. We have been fighting for too long to find some proper space in these rooms.
Collectively, our organizations are exploring ways to multiply our impact. Our work is emergent, experimental and nimble. Our long-term goal is to create the conditions under which women of color can be well-networked and resourced leaders in their fields, run for office, win and stay in office.
Politics
The Women’s Democracy Lab is an incubator for change, post-election. We are creating a holistic community on and offline that elected Indigenous women and women of color turn to for trusted support and highly informative and empowering resources that help them reach their greatest ambitions. Through collaborative efforts with our focus community and by appointing elected women of color as senior advisers, our initiatives are grounded in real experiences, fostering a sense of ownership and empowerment among our members.
Our three pillar programs prioritize building a sense of belonging, aggressively building solutions to their safety, providing fellowship and talent-matching opportunities that help them hang their own shingles and earn a living wage, and providing culturally responsive professional development. With our alumni network spanning 24 states and boasting nearly equal representation between state and local officeholders, we are committed to safeguarding the diversity of our democracy. In 2024, we released a short impact film, “Elected and Unsafe,” shedding light on the escalating threats faced by women of color and Indigenous women in politics. And we are using it to dramatically increase collective efforts to develop comprehensive and empowering resources for themselves, their staff, and their families.
Democracy Rising convenes a cohort for in-person summits twice yearly, and in smaller iterations as we are able to. Our cohort members are elected officials, government administrators, advocates, organizers, and researchers. They all receive a stipend to participate in the program. During our time together and in the virtual spaces we share in between, we are building a nationwide network of women of color democracy leaders and experts. Based on a culture of radical self-care, collective impact, mentorship and sponsorship, we are developing strategies to keep ourselves protected from harm, exploring innovative ideas for revenue generation, and creating opportunities to build our skills, collectively and individually. We create a space where the visionaries and the pragmatists, the policy wonks and the community builders are defining a long-term vision for a rights-expansive, multiracial democracy, and a blueprint strategy to get us there. In the words of our cohort members: “[this is] the only place where I get to dream big about the future with other thought leaders who are all women of color”, and “We work together to create structural governmental changes. We have learned from each other what policies best promote democracy.”
While what we are doing is absolutely essential, it alone doesn’t meet the moment. The conditions for authoritarianism in this country have been set and we finally have a media that’s belatedly reporting on it. Alarms are being sounded and there are efforts to organize against the key tenets that could lead us deeper in. But we are sounding another alarm: that these efforts fail to recognize, once again, that the people most threatened by authoritarianism, women and people of color, need to be front and center.
In the book “How Democracies Die,” we learn that one of the main causes of political polarization “is precisely social inequality — as much as racial and religious differences,” and that the solutions to reducing polarization and revitalizing democracy lie in economic and social reforms that would create a more equitable distribution of wealth. These are the very reforms that women in our programs are working to solve and are experts in leading.
We cannot afford to make the same mistake that we have made again and again, which is bringing women of color in as an afterthought. While a panic has set in around countering the U.S. advancement towards authoritarianism, we see an alarming disconnect from the root causes, the how we got here. This is a critical time for creating an inclusive response. We need more people and organizations working on this, and a greater investment to fund this work, and the time is now.
Across partisan beliefs, it’s critical that we continue to grow the bench of leaders who will innovate and are already fighting to support a multiracial, constitutional democracy. And we must back them up. This house doesn’t need a complete teardown as Kamala Harris’ ascendancy helps to demonstrate. It’s in need of rehabilitation and is ready for the bridge builders who can help us manage the change we desperately need.
Maria Perez was born and raised in Ecuador and immigrated to the United States in the 1990s. She has crafted a career guided by her passion to address social disparities and believes democracy is the ultimate public health indicator. She is co-founder and co-executive director of Democracy Rising.
Muthoni Wambu Kraal is an African-American and first-generation Kenyan-American impact connector, veteran political strategist and adviser to political leaders in the U.S. and internationally. Muthoni is a co-founder and executive director of Women’s Democracy Lab.
