Fine day for my daughters and the rest of U.S.
Ihave young daughters. Like Kobe Bryant, I am a girl dad who never for a minute had any regrets about not having boys, or felt I needed a son to uphold my legacy.
No worries here. None at all. The legacy is just fine.
They don’t pay much attention to the news, just enough to know that they are sick of coronavirus, and that they miss when Barack Obama was still president.
But they couldn’t help but notice this strong, dynamic woman who was on every TV channel Tuesday afternoon, a woman whose smile and complexion mirrored their own. I must admit it warmed my heart when I heard their mother tell them who she was.
“That’s Kamala Harris,” she said. “She’s running to be the first African-American vice president of the United States. And one day, she might be the president.”
The girls were told they could be anything they wanted to be in life, even president, something they heard long before the name Kamala Harris was dripping from every anchor’s lips. But something about seeing her in the moment, with her determined eyes and rich brown skin, and the words “vice president” and “running mate” under her face, made it that much more real,
The girls learned to say her name correctly — COMMA-lah — and it was an essential reminder of how important it is for Harris’ supporters to make sure the media get her name right every time, and not insult her like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson did by repeatedly pronouncing it wrong.
“So what,” Carlson said. “Whatever.”
It always amazed me how news anchors could say the name of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John Shalikashvili without missing a beat but would constantly trip over the simple name of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, a darkskinned diplomat from Ghana.
It was disrespectful then. It is disrespectful now
Because it sells short the reality that people with names like Barack and Kamala, with faces that look like theirs, could go on to be president of the United States.
You can graduate from a historically Black university, you can be a member of a Black sorority, you can even have a father from Africa and still sit in the Oval Office every day.
Harris also taught my girls and every Black girl another important lesson:
In a world where outspoken mothers and daughters, including Michelle Obama, have been dismissed and denigrated as angry Black women, you can speak out and stand up for yourself and what is right, and still be rewarded.
That is what Harris did. On the campaign trail, she was one of Joe Biden’s toughest critics, calling out the former vice president for his stance on school busing, and his willingness to compromise with segregationists in Congress.
There were legitimate worries about Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and whether he was the right candidate to reach young voters and uphold Obama’s legacy.
Biden is still the guy who failed to stick up for Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings, and called Obama “articulate and bright and clean” before their historic partnership.
Now, Biden is the one who needs a partner, and once again, he is on the right side of history.
No worries here. None at all. The legacy is just fine.