Basic Black: What do the 2022 midterm election results mean for communities of color?

BBLA_16-9_MidtermElections_CR8638_v1 — Two Black people filling out their ballots in a voting booth.

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Kenrick Mercado is the Associate Producer for Basic Black at GBH.

Produced live at WGBH Studios in Boston, Basic Black is the longest-running program on public television focusing on the interests of people of color. The show, which was originally called Say Brother, was created in 1968 during the height of the civil rights movement as a response to the demand for public television programs reflecting the concerns of communities of color. Each episode features a panel discussion across geographic borders and generational lines with the most current stories, interviews and commentaries.

November 11, 2022

Updated November 15, 2022

The 2022 midterm elections yielded big wins for women, candidates of color and LGBTQ+ candidates across the country.

Andrea Campbell became attorney general-elect and will be the first Black woman to hold any statewide office in Massachusetts. Other historic wins from this election cycle include: Wes Moore being elected the first Black governor of Maryland; Robert Garcia being the first openly LGBTQ+ immigrant elected to Congress in California; and Maxwell Frost being the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress in Florida.

The new slate of diverse elected officials — especially in Massachusetts — is encouraging, but guests on Basic Black said more work lies ahead.

Historically, the party in power will lose a number of seats in Congress as they get blamed for the nation's problems, but that didn't happen this time.

Dr. Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMASS Amherst and director of UMASS Poll, said while Democrats lost 60 seats in the first midterm elections after former President Barack Obama was inaugurated, it's looking like the party might lose less than 10 this election cycle under President Joe Biden.

"I mean, this is ridiculous in terms of the expectations that we had for a red wave or a red tsunami," Nteta said.

He said locally, we are seeing diversity come to fruition, which builds upon a history of Massachusetts supporting Black candidates.

"There are things to celebrate not just in this election, but historically, and things to build upon as we look to the future, a more diverse Massachusetts as it pertains to who lives here," Nteta said.

Dr. Paul Watanabe, professor of political science and director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston, said that with significant wins for communities of color also came significant losses, such as Stacey Abrams' failed bid for Georgia governor. He said polarization in this country is continuing, but there is hope for the future.

Two guests on Basic Black had firsthand experience running for office this cycle.

Tanisha Sullivan and Rahsaan Hall, who are both Black, said race played a role in their campaigns for secretary of state and Plymouth County district attorney, respectively.

"We are battling with the unconscious bias that has people making assumptions about who we are, and what our policy positions are before we can even open our mouths," said Sullivan, who is president of the NAACP Boston Branch and a member GBH Board of Advisors.

Hall, principal of Rahsaan Hall Consulting and former director of the Racial Justice Program with ACLU of Massachusetts, said some voters said he talked about race too much, and one person even told him there were too many Black people in his campaign video. The people in the video were simply members of his family.

"I think it's important that we have candidates of color and more women, people from the LGBTQ+ community running for these positions, because one of the things that we really took pride in was how we shifted the conversation about what could be possible," Hall said.

All of the guests said they look forward to seeing the impact new leadership will have, and said it shows people from many different backgrounds that representation for them is possible to achieve.

Watch the latest episode of Basic Black on Friday at 7:30 p.m. on GBH 2 or live at the stream on our website. You can also watch on the GBH News YouTube channel. Subscribe to get notifications for future premiere episodes.