The United States Postal Service is under attack again—and this time, the damage threatens both Black livelihoods and Black votes.
The Postal Service is not just how we send letters. It is democratic infrastructure. It is also one of the largest employers of Black workers in the nation. Roughly 29 percent of postal workers are Black, more than double Black representation in the overall labor force. For generations shut out of private-sector opportunity, the post office offered union protection, civil-service hiring, pensions, and a ladder into the middle class.
That is not incidental, it is structural.
So when the man who lives in the House that Enslaved People Built and his allies talk about “reforming,” “controlling,” or “privatizing” the Postal Service, they are not just talking about mail. They are talking about dismantling one of the few remaining federal institutions that has reliably served Black people—as workers and as voters.
Let’s start with voting.
Recent changes in postal operations and postmarking rules mean that ballots are increasingly postmarked when they are processed, not when they are dropped in the mailbox. That may sound like bureaucratic trivia. It is not. In many states, ballots must be postmarked by Election Day to count. Translation: a voter can do everything right—mail their ballot on time—and still have their vote thrown out because the system moved too slowly.
That is not voter error, it’s system failure masquerading as neutrality.
In the most recent election cycle, more than half a million mail ballots were rejected nationwide, and roughly one in five of those rejections were because ballots arrived “late.” Late for whom? Late because of staffing shortages, route consolidation, processing delays, and rigid deadlines that punish voters for problems they did not create.
This is what voter suppression looks like in the 21st century: clean, quiet, and legally defensible—until you look at who it affects.
Black voters, elderly voters, disabled voters, rural voters, and working people juggling multiple jobs rely disproportionately on mail service. They are least able to take time off work to cure ballot errors, drive to election offices, or stand in long lines. When mail slows, their voices disappear. No dogs. No firehoses. Just envelopes quietly discarded.
Now connect that to employment.
Donald Trump has openly floated placing the Postal Service under direct executive control and accelerating privatization. That is not a management tweak; it is a political power grab. Privatization means layoffs, weakened unions, lower wages, fewer benefits, and less accountability. It means shrinking a workforce that has long been a bedrock of Black economic stability.
We’ve walke down this road before. When public institutions are hollowed out, Black workers go first and suffer longest. When jobs disappear “through attrition,” families lose mortgages, health care, and retirement security—slowly, invisibly, and without headlines. The same communities losing counted ballots are losing good jobs.
It’s not coincidence, it’s design.
Weakening the Postal Service does double duty: it narrows the electorate and destabilizes the Black middle class. One hand takes the ballot; the other takes the paycheck. And then we are told this is about efficiency.
Let’s be real.. Private carriers do not deliver to every address. They do not maintain unprofitable routes. They do not guarantee equal access. And they certainly do not exist to protect voting rights. A privatized postal system would serve profit, not people—and profit has never been color-blind.
This is why attacks on the post office should alarm anyone who cares about democracy or racial justice. The Postal Service sits at the crossroads of economic citizenship and political citizenship. Undermine it, and you undermine both.
When Black parents once said, “you can always work at the post office,” they were naming a rare promise in an unequal economy: that there was still one place where the rules applied to us, too. If that institution is dismantled—if jobs are cut, unions weakened, mail slowed, and ballots delayed—then that promise disappears. And so does a piece of democracy. That means a political movement that sabotages the mail to win elections is admitting it cannot win when everyone’s vote—and everyone’s labor—actually counts. Under the guise of efficiency, voter suppression is lurking in the background. Postal service hijinks are consistent with poll taxes, lliteracy tests, and more.
A country that cannot deliver mail fairly cannot deliver democracy.
And a country willing to sacrifice Black workers and Black voters in the name of “reform” is telling us exactly who it values—and who it does not.
