Alabama Democrat Doug Jones escaped with a mere three percent margin of victory as much of the country watched with bated breath to see if the state would allow a racist, misogynist, sexual predator of children to follow America’s election of a racist, misogynist, sexual predator as president two Novembers ago. As the poll results trickled in, and then the exit polls were tabulated, it was of very little surprise that 92% of Black men and 97% of Black women chose to vote for Doug Jones, despite Jones’ anti-Black ad that asked the question of “where would Roy Moore be if he were a Black man?”

A look at the exit polls also shows that the demographics of voters who chose to throw their support behind Roy Moore are much the same as those who chose to throw their votes in the direction of Donald Trump. White people. As has been discussed over and over again by numerous voices, the pervasive power of whiteness is only held in place by a fear of what happens when whiteness is no longer in a position of power in this country.

Ostensibly, the vote for Trump was not so much a vote for Trump, but a vote to keep whiteness in its position of power in this country, and white dominance and white cultural values in America.

Yet, Roy Moore lost because the same Black voters who were maligned and castigated and blamed and told to blame themselves for Trump winning made sure to galvanize a coalition to ensure that Roy Moore would not win. There were pushes to get the formerly incarcerated ballots. There were voter registration drives. There was community canvassing to ensure that Black folk got out and voted, because in some way we knew it was going to be up to us to make sure that we made it out of this election in some kind of shape to survive three or four more years of Trumpian politics and policy.

Black people may have banded together, but it was not out of some duty to do this great and noble work for the rest of America, make no mistake. America might benefit, sure, but the Black people in Alabama did this for the Black people in Alabama. Doug Jones had better start working for them, as soon as he is sworn in.