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The day Joe Biden faced reality and stepped aside, paving the way for Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic Party’s top nominee, Teja Smith felt a mixture of elation and fear.
Smith, who runs a social media company in Los Angeles, had been working particularly hard lately, so he treated himself to a daylong staycation with his family at a Beverly Hills hotel. News of Biden’s announcement came as they were relaxing by the pool.
The historic nature of the thunderous moment was not forgotten by the 34-year-old entrepreneur. But there was another, less euphoric feeling as well.
“Get ready,” Smith wrote on Instagram, “because you’re about to see how much America hates black women.”
Seeing the Nov. 5 election results — just about 100 days after Harris’s overnight transformation — Smith felt sadly vindicated. The only surprise, she said, was how badly Harris lost.
Her defeat, Donald Trump’s victory in every battleground state, and especially in the popular vote, was more than just a slap in the face to black women, who have long been some of the most loyal and dedicated Democrats. It was a fist that hit him squarely in the gut.
raw. Internal organs. Shattered.
Seeing the 47th president from the scene
This sentiment has led many, like Smith and other black women she knows, to be ready to step back from national politics, focusing more on their inner needs and reducing their outward energy. We focus our energy on local issues and community concerns, places where an investment of heart and soul will pay off. In a way that exceeds most of America.
Smith said it was “disgusting” to see the vice president, a former senator, California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, flatly step aside. It also shows that no matter how “high the ladder” a Black woman climbs, “people are still going to doubt you,” she says.
Political activity came naturally to Smith. Her grandmother, who raised her, started the Oakland chapter of the Urban League. Smith’s godmother was the chief executive of Planned Parenthood’s Bay Area branch. Her family took their children to the polls, instilling in her the lore of the revolutionary Black Panther Party, which has roots in Oakland and neighboring Berkeley.
After graduating from high school, Smith moved to Southern California. The appeal wasn’t politics, but the dreamscape Smith grew up watching on TV. She graduated from California State University, Northridge, and used her journalism and communications degree to found Get Social, a company that combines political advocacy and social justice with entertainment and pop culture.
Smith said she knew through her work that Trump would win the White House in 2016, even though many purported political experts and media outlets despised him. Ta. She sensed Trump’s popularity outside of California and other left-leaning regions and the apathy of people who couldn’t imagine a deeply flawed candidate and reality TV star ascending to the nation’s highest office.
Smith said the Trump administration was every bit as bad as he had imagined. It was a combination of scandal, impeachment, anti-immigrant policies and a botched response to a global pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A disproportionate number of them were non-white. “This was really the best outcome considering the president was in a bad position,” she said.
Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Smith began working with Rock the Vote and others to educate and register black and brown voters. Her efforts continued throughout the 2020 campaign, both paid and voluntary. She wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about Biden, and Bernie Sanders was more to Smith’s liking, but her goal was simple. “Make sure Donald Trump never comes near the White House again.”
I recently visited Mr. Smith in the dining room of his South Los Angeles home. Ms. Smith is a charming 1922 Craftsman, which she shares with her husband and 2 1/2-year-old son. Part of her bedroom doubles as Smith’s office. A fancy espresso machine in the kitchen supplements her caffeine habit without straining the household budget.
When Trump became the Republican nominee for the third time — “I can’t even understand how he could run again,” Smith marveled — she redoubled her political efforts. In September alone, she traveled to six states to drum up enthusiasm for the election, helping people register to vote and providing details on early voting and mail-in voting. In total, Smith visited more than a dozen states and spent two and a half months on the road.
There were no grandparents or other relatives to help raise the children. Her husband, a mortgage loan officer, keeps the hearth and the house while running his side business, a hip-hop music page called Hellastorgia.
Trump’s victory after so much time and sacrifice left Smith exhausted and more than a little disappointed. “Even before I went into the election, I was already frustrated by the fact that it was so close,” she said while eating a homemade lavender macchiato. “And to see it play out the way it actually did. Just. I can’t even do that…”
I can’t understand the language.
Smith worries that the second Trump administration will be far worse than the first. But there is no urgency to rush through the barricades or engage in political resistance after the 2016 elections.
“We started a nonprofit organization. … We started all this to make sure something like this never happens again,” Smith said. “And now that it’s happened again, it’s like, maybe this is what you guys want.”
Like many black women I’ve talked to, Smith plans to take a break from President Trump and national politics to tackle issues like Los Angeles’ chronic homelessness problem. “We need people to advocate and talk about things that are impacting their immediate communities,” Smith said of his focus. “Obviously, wrestling at such a big level doesn’t work…it’s good for us.”
Smith said she doesn’t speak for black women, but she and those she knows feel overworked, undervalued and taken for granted for too long. She said she has no desire to “keep stepping up for people who haven’t stepped up for us.”
It’s like, “America, you made my bed.” Now you lie in it.
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