When I learned in February that Chicago’s primary mayoral election would culminate in a runoff between two black women, I was thrilled. Despite the many differences between Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, I trust that a black woman will hold the variety of interests and issues that mayors carry in a way that attends to the complexity of the city's history. Knowing that Chicago’s next mayor is guaranteed to be a black woman makes me feel confident—in a way I haven’t felt before—that local politics might move closer to the values I cherish: amplification of voices that have not been heard, economic policies that raise up people who have the least, and forms of justice that take into account the legacies of the past as well as present circumstances.
For some time now, I’ve been convinced that if the arc of the moral universe is going to be bent toward justice, black women will have a lot to do with it. But an article in today’s Chicago Sun-Times tempers that kind of optimism with the cautious advice of local black women. Amara Enyia, a community leader who came in sixth out of the 14 candidates in the February election, worries that whoever wins today’s runoff will be subject to unfair expectations. She explains: “As black women, we have to be so much better, so much smarter, so much more savvy, and we don’t get the benefit of the doubt. . . . Even though I was running against them, I still identify and empathize with that struggle as a black woman.”
White supremacist imperialist capitalist patriarchy can’t be undone with a single election. Even if it could be undone—or, more likely, if it could begin to be unraveled as the result of many local, state, and national elections putting a multitude of black women into positions of power—I’m pretty sure it’s not fair for me to expect it to.
