Michelle Liu Photo
Carr, Morrison, Woods and Matos.
For Mayor Toni Harp, the moment the door opened came right after the birth of her first child, while she was sharing a recovery room at Yale New Haven Hospital with the sister of a woman named Kathy Robinson, who convinced Harp to work on her campaign for Ward 20 alder.
For New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter, the door opened when Christine Bartlett-Josie, her eventual campaign manager, kept asking her to run for office until Porter gave in.
For Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, the door started opening gradually when she stood up to her supervisor at work, which led to her becoming a union steward, to running for her Board of Alders seat.
Before a crowd of over 50 people — nearly all black women — Harp, Porter and Morrison, alongside immigrant rights organizer Kica Matos and activist Janee Woods, reflected on the doors they walked through when they first entered the political sphere.
The panel, held Wednesday evening at ConnCAT in New Haven’s Science Park Wednesday evening, was part of “Women, Lead!”, an event co-hosted by the Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and the Greater New Haven Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The event was one of many taking place in March, which is International Women’s Month.
“This is the New Haven version of The View,” joked moderator Glynda Carr, referencing the popular ABC daytime talk show.
True to Carr’s word, the five women eased into a frank, and often funny, conversation on the frustrations and opportunities of holding elected and appointed political positions.
Leaving dishes of Ghirardelli chocolate squares and peppermints mostly untouched on the table, they tackled the “angry black woman” stereotype and the necessity of playing the “game” of politics in order to dismantle the system itself, doling out advice to those in the room.
Carr, the co-founder of Higher Heights, a nonprofit aimed at building a “national infrastructure to harness black women’s political power and leadership potential,” helped provide context for the panel. She cited the significance of black female voters in electing Alabama Democrat Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate in December, as well as statistics pointing to the economic, consumer power of black women and their low representation across elected state and national political offices.
Harp with Porter.
When asked for advice, Harp recommended that organizations with youth branches, like the NAACP or even the Girl Scouts, give more support to those youth groups. Woods suggested that women show up at the “hyperlocal” level, such as town committee meetings.
And, as Matos pointed out, “you can be political without running for office.”
Porter, who admitted to being overwhelmed upon setting foot in the statehouse in Hartford, quickly learned to hold her own. She joked that she now holds a PhD in politics in her time as a state rep. “My experience is my evidence,” she said of overcoming imposter syndrome.
Morrison, who had come across live TV footage of a municipal meeting while on maternity leave, decided resolutely that politics weren’t her thing. When she found herself up against three perennial candidates for alder in her ward, almost two decades later, she chose to stick with her principles — that is, not make promises she can’t keep.
“When you run for alder in Dixwell, all you have to say is, ‘I’m going to reopen the Q House,’” said Morrison, who is now leading the revitalization effort for the neighborhood’s long-shuttered community building. “I did not say that.”
White Women’s Betrayal
No one held back on observations regarding race. Matos asked: In the 2016 election, “Who betrayed us?”
Patti Russo of the Women’s Campaign School, about to give Jeanette Morrison the good news.
“White women,” the crowd chimed in unison. (An estimated 43 percent of white women voted for Hillary Clinton in that election, while 94 percent of black women did.)
Porter’s former campaign manager, Bartlett-Josie, chimed in from the audience, saying that she now calls for her white, liberal female friends to “step up for me. You’re married to the white man. Help me out here.” Earlier, she had observed that even with her decades of experience, often “a young white kid fresh out of college” has been chosen to run campaigns over her.
The panel is just the beginning of what New Haven NAACP president Dori Dumas sees as a pipeline for black women to elected and appointed offices, Dumas said.
And at the end of the night, another door opened.
With feathers drifting off her purple boa, Patti Russo of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale Law School pitched the five-day long program to the women gathered in the room.
Then she handed an acceptance letter to Morrison, the newest member of the campaign school’s 2018 cohort, to cheers and applause.
Back in the Bush years, I heard one of a panel of Democrat politicians explain why the white working class didn't vote Democratic, "We don't like them, and they know it." Time and again, Democrats insult the very people whose votes they want. To "clinging to guns and religion", "basket of deplorables" (admittedly out of context) we can now add. "White women betrayed us." Democrats can win the votes of working class whites, men and women, but not with candidates who disparage and attack them and their values.