A breakout media and political analyst delivers a sweeping snapshot of American Democracy and the role that African Americans have played in its shaping while offering concrete information to help harness the electoral power of the country’s rising majority and exposing political forces aligned to subvert and suppress Black voters.
Black voters were critical to the Democrats’ 2018 blue wave. In fact, 90 percent of Black voters supported Democratic House candidates, compared to just 53 percent of all voters. Despite media narratives, this was not a fluke. Throughout U.S. history, Black people have played a crucial role in the shaping of the American experiment. Yet still, this powerful voting bloc is often dismissed as some “amorphous” deviation, argues Tiffany Cross.
Say It Louder! is her explosive examination of how America’s composition was designed to exclude Black voters, but paradoxically would likely cease to exist without them. With multiple tentacles stretching into the cable news echo chamber, campaign leadership, and Black voter data, Cross creates a wrinkle in time with a reflective look at the timeless efforts endlessly attempting to deny people of color the right to vote—a basic tenet of American democracy.
And yet as the demographics of the country are changing, so too is the electoral power construct—by evolution and by force, Cross declares. Grounded in the most-up-to-date research, Say It Louder! is a vital tool for a wide swath of constituencies.
Tiffany D. Cross is a resident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. As an on-air political analyst, she is a longtime cable news veteran. Cross is a former associate producer for CNN, DC bureau chief for BET Networks, and liaison to the Obama administration. She cofounded The Beat DC, a daily newsletter intersecting politics, policy, business, media, and people of color that was widely read by Beltway insiders and media influencers. She attended Clark Atlanta University and lives in Washington, DC.
Table of Contents
Foreword: Bearing the Cross Michael Eric Dyson vii
Introduction 1
Part 1 How I Got Here
1 For Colored Girls Who Consider Journalism When Twitter Is Not Enough 9
2 I'm Beat! 45
3 Ring the Alarm! 65
Part 2 How WE Got Here
4 The Trump Card 73
5 The Red Summer 89
6 White Economic Anxiety in West Virginia Black Economic Anxiety in Michigan 111
