San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Blackwomen across the nation celebrate Harris making history
LOS ANGELES — Shauna Davis was surrounded by hundreds of women and men who had gathered Saturday morning in downtown Los Angeles to demand that the election process be protected fromthe partisan interference that surged as President Donald Trump lost ground during the vote count.
Anita Ros swas curled up in bed in Sacramento when her daughter Kameela raced in. The 10-year-old had spent the week obsessively watching the electoral vote count’s glacial progress. On Saturday morning, she had news.
The wait was over. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California had been elected vice president, the first woman to reach that near pinnacle of U.S. politics. Ohyeah, and Joe Biden had prevailed over Trump in the race for the Oval Office.
Soon, mother and daughter were “hollering and screaming,” said Ross, who is Black and Latina. For her daughters — Kameela and 12-year-old Angelina — “there is a sense of relief that they nowhave a model for what is possible for them. And so it is very, very, very inspiring.” And “emotional,” she said before pausing and choking up. “You know, the sky is the limit. Just to be able to see a Blackwoman, an Indian American, a woman, hold the VP position — it’s been a long time coming.”
Acentury, if your starting date is when the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote in the U.S. Women have been on major-party tickets on occasion over the past 36 years: Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016; Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate in 2008; Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale’s pick for vice president in 1984.
But never on a winning ticket. Until now.
Democrats — and some Republicans and independents — celebrated Saturday morning that the counting was over, that Biden and Harris had won. That victory resonated even more for many women and their daughters and mothers and sisters. Especially for those who are Black or Asian or Latina or mixed race.
When they look at Harris, they see the laughing, dancing, Chuck Taylor-wearing stepmother. They see the former prosecutor and senator who grilled then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about whether he knew “of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body.”
They see power and poise. They see themselves.
Davis danced and hopped along Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles, holding a “Trump Pence out now” sign. The demonstration to protect the vote had morphed into a celebration.
She said she was elated that her grandparents in Florida, who are in their 90s, were able to see the elections of the first Black president and, now, the first Black vice president. She was single-minded in her revelry.
“Itwas completely about Kamala Harris for me,” she said. “I feel supreme joy and excitement.”
Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, was on a family Zoom call Saturday morning when the news arrived. Immediately, she and all her relatives started typing in the chat, saying, “Hallelujah.”
“We weren’t even realizing the level of daily trauma wewere experiencing at the hands of Donald Trump,” said Abdullah, who is Black. At a rally in Los Angeles, she told people that they had voted out the most oppressive and violent president this country has experienced.
Abdullah recalled being inspired by Maxine Waters as a freshman in college but having few other Blackwomen politicians to look up to.
She said her two daughters don’t have the same experience.
“On an emotional and symbolic level, it’s difficult to not celebrate Kamala Harris,” she said. “When I was their age, I never would have seen anything like that.”