March 27, 2026

As I was thinking about what to write for this week’s essay, I was intrigued by an insightful comment I read online earlier this week (my apologies for not being able to credit the source). The commenter suggested that the “sidelining” of nearly 600,000 Black women from the American workforce—with 300,000 of them being displaced from the federal government—was an example of white backlash against Black progress, similar to what was seen during Reconstruction after the Civil War.  

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Reconstruction-era backlash against Black progress was brutal, violent and unquestionable. It was designed to roll back the progress Black communities made as a result of an uptick of Black men in public service and business.

Today’s backlash isn’t marked by Klan lynchings or cross burnings, but is no less devastating, especially for the Black women whose rise in government and public service challenges the entrenched systems that have always sought to contain us.  And as I reflect on the 10 years that have passed since the launch of my project, #RacismIsASickness, I think about how it and my reboot, #10YearsofRacismIsASickness aligns with yet another chaotic cycle of progress and backlash in this country.  

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Before Donald Trump was elected to a second term in 2024, on March 4, 2023, he gave the keynote address to a gathering at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  Trump framed his 2024 campaign by stating, "I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution". He further described the upcoming election as a "final battle" to "obliterate the deep state" and stop what he termed a "communist nightmare".

Fast forward to 2025, one year after Trump was elected to serve a second term. And what could be considered by some to be a petty act of revenge against Black women who voted to the tune of 92 percent for his opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, he signed a series of executive orders rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, displacing over 300,000 Black women from federal positions. 

The ripple effects of these actions (and others) have been destabilizing. This raises the question that drives this reflection: Can racial healing be found when professional and civic progress for Black women—and, by extension, Black people—is constantly under threat from cycles of white political backlash?

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In 2016, #RacismIsASickness emerged at a moment of cautious optimism. The Obama era was winding down, and progress for Black Americans—especially Black women—was visible, yet far from complete. The project aimed to diagnose racism as a persistent, systemic “sickness,” one that didn’t disappear with symbolic milestones or political firsts. Even as doors seemed to open, Black women were often the last to enter and the first to be pushed back, facing barriers that remained invisible to most of the public.

By 2025, the landscape had shifted dramatically. The reboot, #10YearsofRacismIsASickness, arrived in a climate defined by targeted structural setbacks. Trump had been re-elected, issuing executive orders that rolled back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, directly displacing over 300,000 Black women from federal positions. The ripple effects were destabilizing, reaching beyond those immediately affected to communities and institutions that had begun to benefit from their leadership. Unlike the violent, overt backlash of Reconstruction, this new wave was subtler, disguised in policy, bureaucracy, and chaos—but no less corrosive.

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The pattern is familiar: Black progress triggers white backlash. Historically, Reconstruction provided Black men with political opportunities but largely excluded Black women, who could not vote or hold office. Today, as Black women rise professionally and civically, they become the focal point of a modern counter-reconstruction, a backlash that seeks to contain their influence and, by extension, slow the advancement of Black communities. What was once visible and brute-force is now dispersed, insidious, and amplified by the speed and reach of the modern world.

Through both projects, the persistence of this cycle becomes clear. Progress for Black women is both possible and precarious. Gains are celebrated, yet they are constantly tested by structural and social forces designed to limit them. This reflection asks not just what has changed since 2016, but whether these cycles of progress and backlash can ever be broken—or whether racial healing will remain tethered to the rise and fall of Black women in positions of influence.

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If #RacismIsASickness, then what we are witnessing is not just a flare-up, but a chronic condition that adapts to every attempt at progress. The question is no longer whether progress can be made—history has already shown that it can. The question is whether that progress can be sustained when it is met, time and again, with deliberate and strategic backlash by white people “infected” by this disease.

Black women have long stood at the intersection of this tension—pushing forward professionally and civically, even as the ground beneath them shifts. Their gains are often treated as expendable, their leadership as optional, their presence as conditional. And yet, their advancement has consistently signaled broader possibilities for Black communities as a whole. When Black women move forward, so does the promise of something more equitable, more just.

What does it mean, then, to witness their displacement at this scale? What does it say about the systems we claim are evolving? And more urgently, what does it reveal about the limits of this so-called progress, progress that is not protected, not valued, and not sustained?

#10YearsofRacismIsASickness exists within this tension—between what has been gained and what is being taken away, between visibility and erasure, between hope and the reality of repeated disruption. If racial healing is possible, it will require more than moments of progress. It will demand a reckoning with the patterns that continue to undermine it.

Until then, I ask:  Will this country ever make peace with the fact that Black women not only can rise, but lead?  Will the United States of America find a way to leave Black women in leadership alone to carry out their responsibilities?  These are questions needing answers, but  I fear we're running out of time, friends.