This Vote Was Different: A Post-Election Reflection

This was my first time voting in a Detroit election.

Not the Kenya who voted from a dorm in East Lansing just excited to exercise my right.

Not the Kenya whose Oak Park address was mostly about making everyday logistics easier while her real life moved across the region.

Not the young adult who voted wherever her mail happened to land that season.

Back then, my vote lived wherever I lived temporarily — campus housing, my parents’ home, the in-between places that didn’t fully shape my day-to-day. Those ballots mattered, yes, but they didn’t sit in my chest the way this one did. I was moving too fast, surviving too many transitions, carrying too many versions of myself to understand the full weight of what it meant to vote from identity, from belonging, from lived reality.

But this time was different.

Because this moment in Detroit felt bigger than a mayoral race. It felt like a spiritual shift, a generational pivot, a moment where our choices say something about who we believe we are and what we believe we deserve.

This time, I voted as a Detroit woman grounded in her spirit, her experience, her work, her contradictions, and her truth.This time, I wasn’t just voting from a location.I was voting from alignment.

Over the last few years, I’ve slowly stepped back from almost everything — hanging out, social media, organizing circles, how I show up at work, conferences, events, rooms where I was once visible, useful, or expected. That retreat wasn’t isolation. It was clarity. It was healing. It was a recalibration that allowed me to see the city without the fog of responsibility, without the constant need to show up in other people’s frameworks.

Stepping back gave me something I needed more than I realized: the space to think for myself, feel for myself, discern for myself, and finally let my voice — my actual voice — rise again. Writing has always been my original home, the place where I’ve documented my transitions: the academic dreamer, the student organizer, the grassroots child of Detroit, the party girl exploring the world, the poet and artist, the spiritual seeker, the wife, the mother, the friend, the podcaster, the one who thought she had to be everything for everyone.

I’ve lived so many lives publicly that I often forget I’m still evolving.

That’s why this blog is not about debate. It’s not about convincing anyone to agree with me. This is about honesty and record-keeping — the kind of journalism our elders did when they weren’t trying to go viral but trying to leave clarity behind.

So before I share the vote itself, I want to ask something of you gently:

Stay with me.

Don’t check out here.

Don’t cut the thread early.

There’s more to this than a ballot choice.

Because truthfully, I was nervous about naming it. I know how people read into things, how they attach meaning, how quick our world becomes divided. I’ve seen people lose relationships over voting patterns. I’ve seen people weaponize ballots like personality diagnoses.

But vulnerability is part of my evolution now — the grown-up version of me, the spiritually aware version, the woman learning to lead her life from wholeness rather than performance.

So here it is:

I voted for Pastor Solomon Kinloch.

Even typing that, I can feel the tension some people will hold. But before you react, I want to share something that shifted everything for me. Recently, I received a word that spoke about moving in dominion instead of division. Not dominion as in domination or exerting power over others, but dominion as in clarity, groundedness, unity, and spiritually rooted discernment — the kind of inner authority that lets you act from alignment instead of fear. The kind of dominion that says your decisions don’t have to be reactive. They can be whole. They can be interconnected. They can reflect a deeper truth that sits beneath the surface of politics.

That word mirrored exactly what my spirit had been wrestling with — that sometimes our choices are not about choosing sides, but about choosing alignment. And this election, for the first time in my life, I had the freedom to choose from a place without pressure. Mary Sheffield had the momentum, the signs, the community traction. And to be fair, I’ve been around politics enough to know when someone has the vote in the bag. She didn’t need my ballot to win. And because she didn’t need it, I was free to vote from my soul rather than strategy.

And my soul saw something familiar in Kinloch’s run.

He entered the race from the "outside" — not groomed, not expected, not lined up behind the usual political machinery. He ran against established politicians with feet already in the arena. And yet, over the course of months, he pushed through noise, doubt, and dismissal until he became a genuine part of the conversation. Whether people supported him or not is irrelevant. What mattered to me was what that momentum represented.

It was a faith move.

And I’ve been living a faith-move season myself — a season where I’ve been pushed out of misaligned spaces for choosing my spiritual integrity, a season where I’ve had to rebuild my identity outside of roles, a season where I’ve watched God reposition me through quiet steps rather than loud announcements.

I’m not a Triumph member. I’ve popped in from time to time when I needed a word. I’ve seen Triumph show up for the community which they serve. I’ve heard his wife speak in community spaces. I’ve seen the human side of their ministry. Not perfection — but humanity. And for where I am currently on my journey, that mattered.

So my ballot was not a ballot against anyone. It was a ballot that reflected my alignment, my duality, and the unity I believe God is calling us all toward — unity that doesn’t fracture just because our paths are different. Unity that doesn’t fear difference. Unity that recognizes that leadership is not a monolith, and that community requires many lanes working at once.

My vote said, “I’m in for all of us.”

And I meant that.

Truly.

Now with that truth on the table, there’s someone I want to speak on with the clarity and the love she deserves.

Let me be clear about Mary Sheffield…

I respect her deeply.

Not as an idea — but as a Black woman in leadership with roots, resilience, and a real Detroit story.

Growing up in a political home, I saw firsthand the weight, the scrutiny, the always-on posture required to survive those spaces. I saw how power tests people, reshapes them, demands something from them that the public will never see. Mary Sheffield has endured and remained present. She’s built authentic neighborhood relationships. She’s kept her credibility in a city that doesn’t always give Black women the benefit of the doubt.

I root for her.

Honestly.

Because she represents both continuity and possibility — a leader who understands the formal rooms and the informal truths that shape Detroit. Her campaign (and the election results) reflected that. It feels grounded. It feels community-informed. It feels like she’s reaching into circles that matter.

And my hope is that she leads with her whole self, not the shadow of any predecessor, not the pressure to maintain anyone else’s narrative, and not the need to soften what makes her powerful. Detroit deserves a leader anchored in her truth, and she is positioned to be exactly that.

My vote is not a reflection of what she lacks — it’s a reflection of the unity I believe is necessary in this next season. We don’t have to divide to move forward. We can hold multiple truths at once. We can support our leaders and still walk our own spiritual alignment.

And that’s where my heart sits with Mary: rooting for her, praying for her, supporting her, and standing with a community that wants her to succeed.

Recently, Mary Sheffield announced her Rise Higher Detroit Transition Team, and seeing some of the folks she included genuinely excited me and gave me a sense of hope. My favorite appointment — and a major inspiration — was seeing Zeek Williams, representing New Era Detroit, at the table. That felt like a shift in the spiritual fabric of this city — the kind of shift you cannot manufacture.

New Era Detroit has been doing the work for years — even when the propaganda and media were against them. Even when they weren’t receiving the credit they deserved, they kept showing up for the people. They hold the disciplined, community-rooted, spiritually aligned energy of movements like the Shrine and the Black Panther Party. They embody what it looks like when alignment becomes action and action becomes impact. Seeing Zeek step into this moment as a co-chair — carrying not only the weight of his leadership, but the love and care that have sustained this movement, with his wife Kierra close behind him and the New Era Nation surrounding him — spoke to my spirit about where Detroit could go if courage truly leads policy.

There are other appointees who deserve their flowers, too — Johnnie Turnage, blending innovation and culture through BTS movement; Kenyetta Campbell grounding neighborhood revitalization with lived wisdom; Dwan Dandridge showing up for small Black businesses with generosity and intention. Along with the many others who’ve been called with the privilege to be a voice in this critical season. Their presence matters, and their voices will anchor conversations we need.

This is where my hope grows. This is where my excitement lives. This is where I see Detroit’s future stretching into something wider and more unified.

Because that’s the truth of it all:This election, this moment, this blog — it’s not about division.

It’s about dominion.

It’s about the courage to rise into unity without uniformity.

It’s about becoming the version of ourselves that our ancestors built us to be.

And it’s about believing that Detroit — this complex, layered, spiritual, gritty, brilliant city — has everything it needs to create something whole.

I believe that.

And I believe we can do it.

Together.