November's US elections are fast approaching amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and the months of protests for racial equality that have engulfed the nation. One of the key calls of Black Lives Matter protestors has been the desire to see more black people being represented in political office. What is now clear from recent data is that a record number of black women will be running for Congress come November.
According to the data, 60 black women have already been nominated by their parties to stand for office or are still taking part in primary elections. At present 23 black women currently serve in the US congress. Though despite making up over 7% of the US population they take up less than 5% of the current seats.
According to Reuters news agency, in 2019 a record number of black women already serve in state legislative office. They said in a press release:
"Between 2018 and 2019, Black women saw the largest gain in representation at the state legislative level since 1994. In 2019, a record number of Black women serve in state legislative office."
Pam Keith, who is a Democratic party nominee in Florida, told the news agency:
"People are becoming more comfortable with seeing different kinds of people in Congress. You don't know what it looks like to have powerful Black women in Congress until you see powerful Black women in Congress."
The Republican party currently have zero black women sitting in Congress, after Mia Love, their only sitting black woman, lost her seat in the 2018 mid-terms.
While some may claim that the reason fewer black women are in power is because of a lack of personal drive to become involved in the democratic process, this is certainly not backed up by data. Black women are proportionally the demographic group most likely to turn out to vote in US elections (in 2008 and 2012), which shows that the relatively lower level of representation is, in fact, due to political disenfranchisement. This may take the form of political parties not selecting them as candidates or as a result of racism.
Kimberly Walker, another black female candidate in the running, added:
"We need to have more people, average, everyday American citizens who are there fighting for average, everyday American citizens."
With greater female black representation in higher political office, it is hoped that solutions will be more readily available for the division and fragmentation existing in US society and the disenfranchisement felt by many in the black community.
Current polling is showing that Joe Biden is set to remove the incumbent president Donald Trump and leads him by far greater margins than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 at the same stage of the campaign.
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