The contours of the 2016 presidential title match—Hillary Rodham Clinton in the blue corner and Donald J. Trump in the orange corner—have been shaped by the politics of fear, the presence of privilege, and the unbinding of race and class as black voters work through the fractures exposed by the looming exit of President Barack Obama.
And as the sharp blows continue to land, the shaming of progressives who aren’t betting on either of the two candidates has become par for the course.
Even though Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party are more likely to have an impact on the general election as Trump stumbles through the news like an overaged, angry toddler, there has been a lot of uninformed chatter about the so-called sudden emergence of the Green Party this presidential cycle. Let the liquor tell it, the Greens’ entire existence is a reactionary and opportunistic response to Bernie Sanders’ popularity and Clinton’s lack thereof.
Of course, Sanders’ valiant push to the left broadened the political landscape for younger voters, but the Green Party is not the new kid on the block. Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke ran in 1996 and 2000. There was the under-the-radar campaign of David Cobb and Pat LaMarche in 2004. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente (the first all-black-woman ticket in U.S. politics) ran in 2008. Dr. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala ran in 2012; and now Stein and human rights activist Ajamu Baraka are running in 2016.
Still, for some who straddle the center of the political party line, the surging and uncomfortable popularity of the Green Party this year presents a problem. With Stein cast as a fame-seeking spoiler by many Third Way Democrats, her platform has been labeled too radical and her presence too risky in a year when a Republican president will usher in the end of the world as we know it. And in a white supremacist capitalist nation like the United States, an agenda that includes a Green New Deal, reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans, an end to mass incarceration and poverty, and a moral and financial divestment from Israel as long as it continues to violate the human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people would seem over the top.
Of course it would.
Despite the “Everybody hates Hillary” (because she’s a woman) contingent, this is bigger than her and Trump; it always has been. This is much bigger than Sanders, which makes the asinine assumption that all of his supporters will pivot with him into the Clinton camp—as he always said he would do—so ridiculous. With any organization, political or otherwise, privileged white people will suck the air out of the room and then ask you why you can’t breathe. This is why black and brown voters disillusioned with our so-called democracy are not looking for, running to or campaigning on behalf of any white saviors, regardless of party. They are running toward freedom and away from a political duopoly that refuses to make space for legitimate left critique. And they are searching for concrete ways to include marginalized communities of color that are left behind when that happens.
It is clear that proximity to power and privilege feels like liberation, or at least advancement, for some black people. So, unlike some of my friends and associates on the left, I do not think that centrists of color need convincing that the system as is will never be just or equitable. They know that it will not. I do not believe that they lack political imagination; rather, they exist exactly where they want to be: in the number and at the table.
It doesn’t matter to many of them that that table is in a burning house.
This is not some test of radical will but one of rational thought. This is not simply a matter of conscience but a matter of common sense. These are the same black centrists who mock those on the left but love to talk about the risks—sometimes fatal, always difficult—that our ancestors took to get us this far, and not just by faith.
We are in a political age where centrist black voters will quote Angela Davis, rock Assata Shakur T-shirts, post Martin Luther King Jr. memes about “lukewarm liberals” and protest like Malcolm, then derisively tell those on the left that now is not the time for revolution because we have to “strategize.” We have centrist black feminists quoting Anna Julia Cooper—“Only the BLACK WOMAN can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood”—who are proudly following a white woman through 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because they believe she’s the best chance we have at equality. Equity be damned.
This is a huge reason why I spend less and less time explaining myself or, to paraphrase both Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, explaining my reason for being—in this space, in this way, standing in the fire this time. Because nuanced conversations about when and where black people should enter have been poisoned by a dishonest, “pragmatic” liberalism that deprioritizes the protection of and investment in black people under its big tent.
Despite the many systemic, consistent and oftentimes violent ways we have seen this play out in communities of color, those on the left have been accused of placing the country in danger because some people confuse a deeply considered refusal to buy in with a reckless plan to sit out. They have been told that they are ignorant, selfish, politically immature. They have been told that they are fools to vote on principle and are cautioned against allowing the “perfect to be the enemy of the good”—the most disingenuous and dangerous cliché to emerge from this election cycle. They have been treated with a galling lack of respect and condescension simply for loving black people enough not to settle for just enough.
This is where we’ve entered.