Dulce Sloan (45:08)
Well, I got a email from my manager. And my manager was like, hey, Jameer, like, we need you to go to D.C. at Howard University for the election night party for Kamala Harris, VP Harris. And I'll be honest, like, I did not want to go. Like, I just kind of was not feeling it. Like, I had election plans already, and they consisted of just staying at home, taking about, like four or five edibles and just, like, hoping for the best. But when. When they said that they needed me to go, like, I kind of knew it was, you know, an offer that I couldn't refuse. So I packed, like, some clothes in a bag and I bought a train ticket and I headed to D.C. and when I got to Howard University, I was. I really. I just wasn't feeling it. Like, there was a lot of people, there was a lot of noise. So I'm kind of like kicking myself for even going. But I grabbed my Press credentials, and I headed to Howard's campus. And when I walked up the hill, the first thing that I heard when I got to Howard's campus was a very loud version of Beyonce's Before I Let Go from the Homecoming album coming from a DJ booth. And the first thing that I saw, like, I looked to my left and I looked through the gate, and it was like, 400 plus people doing the Electric Slide. Like, I. You know, this is, like, my first election party. Like, I had no idea it was going to be like, an election party. And, like, what I was thinking, I was like, you know, my. This is funny that my white job would send me to a black homecoming because I have a. I have a white job. Like, I'll be honest. I work for one of the biggest publishing companies in the world, Vanity Fair, as a. As a video director. You know, this is my first, like, election season. I have been working with journalists throughout the company to help cover, like, the political coverage. So I went to the dnc, I went to the VP debates, and this is, like, the first time that I'm at an election party. So as much as I was excited, I was also like, are y'all not scared? Like, nobody's nervous. Like, we're doing the Electric Slide so early in the night. I was like, okay. But I leaned into it. And so now I dance up to the security. Like, I'm kind of like, you know, dancing up to the security. And as I'm going past to get on the field, like, where everybody is, the security woman stops me. She places her hand on my chest and goes, baby, you can't be on here. You can't be in here. She looked at my press pass, and she was like, you don't have a green wristband if you want to be a part of press. And press is all the way around the block. Like, all the way around the block. So I'm like, you know, this is where all the action is. But whatever, I'll go to press. So I walk all the way to press, and press is so far from the joy, the music, all the excitement that everybody's watching from the press pit on a Jumbotron. And I was there to interview people about the night. I was like, I can't. I can't do this from here. So I walk all the way back around to security, and for, like, the next 45 minutes, I try to, like, lie. I try to speak. I try to sneak my way onto this field to no avail. I gotta. I gotta call my manager. So I let My manager know, like, hey, you know, I know this is a quick turnaround, but they're not letting me do my job. I can't get on the field and interview people. I don't know what to do, but I just wanted to reach out. And so my manager goes, well, you know what, Jamir? We understand this was a last minute thing. If you feel like you can't do your job to the best of your ability, you could, like, pack up and go home. But I was already, like, too invested. Like, if this was like episode two of the series that I was binging, I would have. I would have quit. But I'm like, on episode seven, like, I'm in the midst of it, I gotta figure out a way. And somebody who had seen me like, walk back and forth from press to try to get in taps me on the shoulder and go, hey, I've been seeing a lot of people hop that gate across the field. And I see the gate and it's like an idle gate. And so I'm like, okay. So I walk all the way back around, even past press, to this idle gate that no security, nobody is like, by. At first, I try to, like, push open the gate. It wasn't open. And I tried to, like, wiggle my ass through the gate. I couldn't do it because I had on, like, my journalist khakis and they were very snug, and so I couldn't. I couldn't get through. And I was just thinking, I was like, I have the green light. I could just go home. But something about the energy of hope that was on that field coming from those people, I just knew that I had to do this. I was like, I'm gonna have to hop the gate. And so I had to stretch because I'm 35 at the time. And I was like, I haven't hopped the gate since maybe 25 years. And so I knew I had to stretch. And I proceeded to very slowly and carefully but forcefully hop this gate. And I hopped the gate and I got over and I landed fine. And I covered my press pass and I ran straight into this crowd. And the energy from the crowd was even more, like, electrifying that than I saw from the outside. I mean, it was just so much communal joy and happiness and, like I said, hope that I didn't feel. But I was really, really curious to why people were feeling like this. So I took off my book bag in the middle of this crowd. I grabbed my microphone, and I knew the first question that I wanted to ask was, why Are you so hopeful? And I just started speaking to people and you know, people were saying, you know, they were hopeful about women's rights and someone had mentioned that they were hopeful about education. And I spoke to this one woman who was, who said that she was just happy that her 4 year old daughter got to see her vote for the first female Indian black American President of the United States. It felt really good to just be there, like, just to be in the midst of, of what that felt like and what that. About 30 minutes into the interviews, the DJs music cuts off. And on that jumbotron that press was looking at, CNN comes on. And we begin to watch the votes come in as a community of people in this field at Howard University. And for about the next hour, I watched people's hope, people's unity, people's love slowly seep out of that field. I mean, it was so silent. At one point, if I dropped like my phone on my microphone, you could hear it. Thousands of people in this field, people just began to cry, to become angry, to become confused and frustrated. And then people just started to, to leave after a while. And even though the votes weren't officially all in, you kind of got the sense that this wasn't going the way that the crowd expected as all this collective grieving was going on. Like, the first two people that I thought of were my mom and my cousin Sonia. I thought of my cousin Sonia because she was one of the people that I interviewed at Howard's campus. She's at Howard Jr. This was her first time voting, and she was so excited to vote for a Howard alum and a black woman president that every time I would ask her, you know, so what are you so hopeful about if Kamala Harris does win? And she said, no, Jay, when she wins, when she wins. And knowing that amount of hope and just love was there, it gave me hope. But I also did not want to rain on her parade. And I thought about my mom as well. My mom has been an educator of New York public schools for over 50 years. She's retired now. But I thought about what repealing all that work from not only her, but so many teachers and educators around the country would look like. And it made me sad, to be honest. Upon, like me packing my stuff up and heading to leave myself, the DJ comes back on and he plays California Love by Tupac and Dr. Dre for some reason. And I'm like, you can't read the room, you're not reading the space. But that felt like a good culmination to kind of leave out on. So I pack up my stuff, and I head out the gate, and I'm walking with my microphone, and a student from Howard University stops me. He goes, bro, like, you work for Vanity Fair? I was like, yeah. He was like, bro, that's crazy. I didn't even know black people worked at Vanity Fair. And I was like, it's not much of us because I got a white job. But he thought that was just, like, so cool. And we just started to, like, talk, and he asked if he can get an interview, and I said, sure. Like, the. The move was so gloomy. I did not want to ask anybody for interview at that moment, but he wanted to speak, and I allowed for him that space. So I started to ask him about how he felt, and, you know, he talked about being frustrated and anxious, but still extremely hopeful that things would turn around. And then he plugged his mixtape, and I thought that was. I was like, go ahead. Do your thing.
