Black voters exist in the Midwest. Democrats, ignore us at your peril.

Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's surprise victory against incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley for New York's 14th District couldn't be a better case study of how candidates running on unabashedly progressive platforms — platforms that embrace racial, gender and economic justice.

But skeptics insist that the success of left-wing candidates in local constituencies across the country is a narrow phenomenon that depends on regional distinctions and, more specifically, the kinds of incumbents who inhabit those communities. For doubters, the Midwest, a region both mythologized and misunderstood, has become the perfect symbol for the unachievability, on a broad scale, of a leftist platform.

Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth capture the feeling when he said of Ocasio-Cortez's victory: “I think she's the future of the party in the Bronx … I don't think you can go too far to the left and win the Midwest.”

Erasing black and brown Midwesterners from the conversation robs them of political agency

As a black Midwesterner from one of its poorest and most abusive cities, I was struck not only by the profound inaccuracy of this view but also by the way it revealed a deeply limited imagination of what is politically possible. The views expressed by Duckworth, whatever their intended purpose, effectively erase black and brown people — and our political priorities — from the Midwest landscape. You don't need to be an expert in political communication to decipher what's going on here.

When you pit “the Bronx” against “the industrial Midwest,” you create them as completely different planets inhabited by wildly disparate creatures. The Bronx represents people of color living in violence, poverty, and smoldering destruction. Meanwhile, the “industrial Midwest” conjures up storybook images of hulking factories, plains stretching to the horizon, and small, all-white industrial towns filled with people who just wish we could get back to the basics of family, church, and dignity. of hard work. These scenes rarely include black and brown people. It's no accident.

It would be great if we could just raise an eyebrow and laugh it off, but that's impossible when it has real consequences for people's lives. When the “industrial Midwest” becomes synonymous with this mythic version of white people, the concerns of other groups go unheard and unaddressed. And if we believe that democracy is a good idea and that people should have a say in shaping their own destinies, then removing them from the conversation is morally criminal.

Black voters are among the most economically progressive in the country

So the question is, does this view of the Midwest — where people of color are either absent, or perhaps hold moderate views on issues like economic and racial justice — resemble the real thing?

The facts say otherwise. First, there is a straight demography. The Midwest is pretty white, but it's not Happy days. The area is dotted with towns whose populations resemble that of the Bronx. In these cities, people of color have suffered greatly for decades and are the vast majority.

It's clear what “jump country” critics of the progressive movement have in mind: one where Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cleveland, to name a few, never made it out of the ruins of the decade 1960s and '70s. But we are there and our views are known.

A large body of national survey data spells this out quite clearly. Black and Latino voters consistently rank both racial and financial issues near the top of their priorities. And black voters in particular are among the nation's voters more progressive economicswith the majority supporting socialized medicine, a federal jobs guarantee, and minimum wage increases.

There's no mystery why. There was, after all, this torrent of decades of rise inequality and wage stagnationand declining health, which swallowed up all but an elite few and saved her the worst disaster for communities of color. And especially for blacks, progressive economic views are closely tied to them the knowledge that racism not only threatens their physical well-being, but can also make economic life quite miserable.

The history of almost every black Midwestern population began in the early 20th century, when black families throughout the South fled to Midwestern and western cities to escape an area that threatened to kill them or lock them into economic servitude. We can see how a legacy of fleeing persecution would sour anyone on the basic system they live under.

And with financial life it seems almost as dim for black Americans, just as it was 50 years ago, it is entirely understandable and predictable that large segments of them want to see this system discarded in lieu of something more radical.

For example, like the shows the Economic Policy Institute, despite real gains in issues like education and politics, black unemployment still hovers at twice the white rate. And it's harder to find a more damning statistic than this: According to the Institute for Policy Studies, it would take more than 200 years for the wealth of the average black family to match that of the average white family.

Democrats need black midwesterners to win the district

Strategically, Democrats need black Midwesterners to get out and vote. As Sean McElwee reports on Nationa significant portion of black voters, especially in the Midwest, stayed out in 2016 after paving the way for the election of Barack Obama just four and eight years earlier.

McElwee finds that “38 percent of people who voted for Obama in 2012 but then did not vote in 2016 were black, and 15 percent were black voters under the age of 30.” Without them, the chances are slim indeed. Given what we know about the political preferences of black voters, and their importance to the party, it seems like a no-brainer for the entire Democratic Party to rally behind a progressive platform that promises to improve their lives.

The bottom line is this: Progressives of color can win in the Midwest precisely because they exist in large enough numbers to do so. And where they do not, it is useful to remember that political outcomes are not written in the stars. They are written on the ground and subject to a thousand different daily influences.

It's such a good time, then, as so many watch an economic landscape that threatens to leave them without a future, for candidates to push left and make a strong case for tearing down the walls of American racism and oligarchy.

The path to finding out is, ironically, the same one that Duckworth suggests. As he said in the same much-discussed interview, “You have to be able to talk to the industrial Midwest, you have to listen to the people there.” Midwest black and Latino voters have a lot to say.

Eli Day was born and raised in Detroit. He is a researcher at In These Times magazine and writes on economics, race and history. You can follow him on twitter @elihday.

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