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.

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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.

While I watch my wife and daughter process the results, I hurt for them. I’m reminded of what the........

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