But Sears — a former marine and the first Black woman to be elected to a statewide office in Virginia — was having none of it. “I wish Joy Reid would invite me on her show — let’s see if she’s woman enough to do that,” she said on Fox News the day after she won. “I’d go in a heartbeat and we’d have a real discussion without Joy speaking about me behind my back, if you will.”

“I am a heartbeat away from the governorship, in case anything happens to the governor. How are you going to tell me I am a victim?” she said. “And I didn’t do anything special to get here, except stay in school and study. I took advantage of the opportunities available here in America.”

“We can do better — it’s not 1963,” she added.

Except, when the subject is race, it’s always 1963 to elites on the left. It’s always Birmingham, Ala., and the hateful Bull Connor, or some other racist place and person in the Old South. You’d think that by now progressives would have, well, progressed. But they’re stuck in the past. On matters of race, the past is their safe space. That’s when Blacks were victims and whites, their oppressors. Winsome Sears is telling them that “It’s not 1963” anymore, and that’s something they don’t want to hear.