We crave the hard-to-get while ignoring the one who has stuck with us through thick and thin. In a letter to the DNC chair, a group of black women — activists, community leaders and elected officials — has accused the Democratic Party of falling into that too-often-true cliche. Who can blame them?

Shades of “Moby-Dick” in the narrative that took hold after the party’s 2016 losses, with white working-class males replacing the elusive white whale of Melville’s imagination. Will the results for the Democrats be just as tragic as Captain Ahab’s if the party doubles down on that strategy for election cycles to come?

“The Democratic Party has a real problem,” last week’s open letter to Tom Perez states. “The data reveals that Black women voters are the very foundation to a winning coalition, yet most Black voters feel like the Democrats take them for granted. The Party’s foundation has a growing crack and if it is not addressed quickly, the Party will fall even further behind and ultimately fail in its quest to strengthen its political prospects.”

In this year’s bumpy unity tour, Perez joined Sen. Bernie Sandersto try to win over voters who often treated him as an opening act while saving their love for Sanders, the Vermont independent who spent most of his time piling on Democrats’ failure to convincingly present a progressive agenda. Sanders’ presidential campaign had had its own challenges when trying to reach black voters.

In their appearances, Perez kept busy propping up the big tent he says is still what the party is about.