Kamala Harris' loss breaks my heart — for my wife and daughter, and for America

Vice President Kamala Harris lost her campaign for president overnight, breaking the hearts of many, including my wife Caron and four-year-old daughter Cross, who have both fiercely advocated for her victory from the beginning. They are gutted, their spirits are down; my spirit is down. America's decision is nauseating. But we are still America. We are still here, and the fight for freedom must go on. We must push forward.

To be completely honest, seeing a man who is proudly against women having the right to choose what to do with their own bodies in 2024 win a national election is beyond devastating. It proves that our country has no interest in loving women. To think, women in America are CEOs, top physicians at elite medical institutions, judges, mechanics, bodybuilders and astronauts –– women birth us, they raise us and have proved they have the power to do anything a man can do. That they still can't claim the title of president is beyond me. The only word that comes to mind is sad.

While I watch my wife and daughter process the results, I hurt for them. I'm reminded of what the significance of having a Black woman claim her seat in the White House would have meant for them. What it would have meant to me. Because I'll admit, I didn't always understand the power of symbolism.

As a boy born in the 1980s, I wasn't taught to pay attention to the chokehold that the patriarchy has on women. We boys were taught to exist as men and defend that, to hold onto the idea that we are leaders and authority figures, even if we didn't earn it. Questions about qualifications didn't even cross our minds.

And even as we grew up and some of us began identifying as good guys, we probably still talked over women or questioned the things we learned from them — treated them in ways we just wouldn't a man. There's a good chance our positions at work could have been given to more qualified women. But these things don't cross our minds because they don't have to. I began learning about the role gender plays in my place in society in high school. Trump is in his 70s and he still doesn't get it, but he gets to be president — if privilege were a person, he'd be it.

As I've grown, I have been actively working to unlearn this inherited behavior. It wasn't until I settled down with my wife Caron and began to build a home that I realized the problem was worse than I imagined. Watching Caron navigate her profession opened my eyes to how the patriarchy can affect a woman every day of her life.

Like Harris, Caron is a lawyer, HBCU graduate and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister. She has been talking about what was on the other side of that glass ceiling since the day the vice president announced her candidacy. Like Harris, Caron has led organizations, directed large staffs and earned her way to the top, but her accomplishments have not been recognized in the same ways a man's would. It's a reality she shares with many women — always being called to solve the problem and rarely getting credit after she does.

Harris represented the idea of overcoming all of that, and I pray we don't lose that feeling. Seeing Caron's enthusiasm for Harris trickling down to our four-year-old daughter, Cross, was magic. Throughout the campaign season, Cross marched around the house, saying, "Don Trumpet is a bad boy. He will lose. Comma-la will win, win, win!"

The first time we heard our daughter's anti-Trump rant earlier in the year, around the time VP Harris became the presumptive nominee, we laughed, not knowing where it came from. Maybe her feisty grandmas on both sides, who were also anticipating this day, taught her that. As November 5 approached, Cross' convictions grew stronger.

"Donald Trumpet is a nasty man, he's trashy," Cross screamed in her sweet little voice. "Comma-la will win!"

And now we have to sit her down and tell her that America chose a person who is anti-woman. What hurts more is that I hear men — so-called progressives — champion women every day while doing nothing meaningful to help propel them through sexist spaces. Male leaders from every demographic talk about the power of women, but do they hold space for them? They champion women in leadership as an idea, but what do they do to make it a reality? I saw Black and Brown men, from my own community, who were raised by their single mothers and single grandmas, scream for " Trump!" I don't get it. Are they delusional, or do they hate women, or both?

This loss is even more personal for me, considering the battles I watched many women in my life take on.

As a teenager, I watched my mother, a talented phlebotomist, be robbed of promotions at Johns Hopkins Hospital where she worked for 20 years. She was often responsible for training the person who would be supervising her. I watched my grandma run our family full of dysfunctional men who were completely lost after she died. While alive, she was never acknowledged for her leadership. They both had to find a way to survive in Trump's America. Sadly, we are still there. What's even more sad is that I was not surprised.

Throughout this entire campaign, Caron and Cross remained beyond confident. The two were delicate like bombs whenever they witnessed anyone displaying the slightest bit of uncertainty. I couldn't help being skeptical, though, because I remember in 2016, thinking Hillary Clinton was going to have this moment. Her skill set says she should have won, but America has a history of getting it wrong. In 2016, we got it very wrong. So yes, I was terrified.

I was terrified because America has a way of ignoring blatant racism. As if Trump never took out that ad advocating for the Central Park 5 to be executed; as if he hasn't flirted with Nazi-style imagery and references; as if he never said there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville even though one side united to celebrate and praise hate; as if he never called countries that were full of proud people of color sh**holes. I was terrified.

The low morale of Democrats while Biden ran for reelection was haunting. There was no energy, little celebrity movement, few campaign signs and cheeky bumper stickers. It felt like we weren't in election season and that was terrifying. Political conversations in my friend groups, which are filled with hard-working people who care about the progress of this country, ended with nothing more than shrugs about voting for Biden again. No one was offering to host a campaign dinner, no one was rocking a Biden hoodie, and definitely no one was sending out emails or knocking on any doors.

But smart people know excitement wins elections. And Trump had all of the excitement until the Kamala effect.

It was telling when Harris announced her candidacy and a collection of blue and white campaign signs flooded every liberal district, seemingly overnight. She delivered a taste of that 2008 Obama feeling—hope. An endless amount of hope. I matched my wife and daughter on energy and bought in.

When Obama was elected, I was naive about political power. I believed that his election would erase racism and force oppressors to see the errors of their ways. I foolishly thought his acceptance meant we were all being accepted, but that could not have been farther from the truth. The country accepted him, but not us. He was special. We were exactly the same. He experienced a revolution in his own home, life and legacy that we celebrate from the same places of uncertainty where we remain.

That's the feeling I walked away with as a man. I can only imagine how Black women, who have to deal with double oppression, felt.

I was equally naive after Trump's first term, thinking his presidency would cause our country to collapse. Even though his mismanagement of COVID and hateful, divisive rhetoric left us eternally scarred, we are still here. We made it. Hopefully, my wife and I can show our daughter that she will make it to.

Eight years of President Obama and four years of Trump have taught me that the goals I expected from my leader had to be realistic, not some dreamy left-wing utopia full of reparations, and universal freedom or instant destruction, as a result of chaotic racism.

No leader will ever be too bad or too good. The only thing guaranteed is that we have to show up and fight. We will rally, we will vote and we will continue to champion women as a family.

I don't want to lose this special moment by becoming lost in the reality of surviving Trump. Kamala Harris was elected Vice President. That is proof we are moving in the right direction, even as we prepare to navigate this setback.

Her journey and leadership will continue to inspire my family as we prepare for whatever is next. And until we figure out what that is, we will be fighting — for you, for us and for America.