Could I Have Been a Black Woman in a MAGA hat?

Published on August 8, 2020

The realization that I might have voted for Donald Trump came to me in slow, oozing thoughts. Thoughts I shoved away as I continued my very public activism for justice and equality; I am known for this in my small hometown of Columbus, Indiana, where I wrote a diversity column in the local paper for a decade. Columbus is also VP Mike Pence’s hometown, and that’s important. I’ll get to that.

Very few people know this secret, one I share rarely because it brings me some shame: I am a black woman who was a very conservative, right-wing Christian who voted Republican, right up until Obama’s first run for president. My adult children, who stood in line for hours in Harlem, New York, to vote for Obama, gave me the courage to vote my heart.

Being biracial, half black and half white, and identifying as black, I had been raised in white churches and in a white family. I had absorbed this conservative thinking, making no adjustment for my brown face. I had been hurt by white people, but most of those close to me meant no harm, and once confronted with my hurt, they hurt too.

Even though Columbus was 99% white, it was a special place when I was growing up. White leaders were actively looking to bring diversity and equity into the community. A city known for its world-renowned architecture, art, and excellent schools could be magical at times.

I had to confront the magic moments of my childhood when Mike Pence became Trump’s choice for vice president. The community that had nourished and encouraged me, now overwhelmingly and publicly supporting Trump’s racist, misogynistic, and homophobic views on their social media.

One woman, once a girl, who had been in my elementary school sleepover gang, someone I had giggled with while dancing and leaned close to while watching scary movies, was posting that Muslims are terrorists. A woman, once a teenager, I shared a bunk bed and cabin with while we were camp counselors for a summer, posted that “Trump is a good Christian man.”

Those I cheered with from the stands while our sons won and lost a decade of basketball games, and some of those I squeezed next to in theater seats every year as we watched, and whined, as our children danced in the longest recitals ever, were on the “All Lives Matter” train, many furious that confederate statues were being removed.

But the people I sat next to in the pews, they hurt and surprised me the most. Many of them, tended, like Evangelicals nationwide, to see Trump as God’s man. Church-goers I had thought of fair-minded and reasonable began to justify the p@$$y-grabbing, the housing discrimination, the bullying of the disabled journalist, the children in cages. I was hurt. Had they always felt this way? How had I missed this?

I began to see that I was the one whose life had shifted. This was when I heard the first airy whisper, “If your life hadn’t changed, could you have voted for Trump?”

But my life had changed. At the end a long marriage, with my two children in college, I had started working in TV news, which exposed me to all kinds of people, moved me across the US, and sent me traveling around the world, learning, growing, and expanding my perspectives.

I watched with pride as Columbus had its first Black Lives Matter event last month. One thousand people, mostly white, showed up. When one black speaker stepped to the mic I was, at first, frustrated by his smooth and complimentary words. “This is no time to be gentle,” I thought, and then I recognized my former self in his manner; being extra careful not to ruffle feathers, complementing the system many times before condemning it, giving gentle black answers to aggressive white questions. A skill you unconsciously learn when you are 1% of a city’s population. I am not judging him; being “woke” is a journey. 

Had my life stayed on the same course, I might very well have voted for Trump, though I would not have worn the MAGA hat. I would have slinked away from the voting booth, as I did in other elections, feeling like I had let people down, but hoping my vote counted for some obscure morality. Don’t judge me; being “woke” is a journey.