Why Black progressive women feel torn about Kamala Harris
Vice President Joe Biden has announced that Senator Kamala Harris will join his political pursuit of the White House.
Women of color, particularly progressives, might feel torn. Perhaps even closeted excitement. Senator Harris is sharp, strategic, and witty, undoubtedly qualified to be vice president of the United States. She graduated from a historically Black college and belongs to a prestigious Black sorority. A biracial woman with Jamaican and Indian heritage, we have seen her break color barriers and shatter glass ceilings, even though poor, Black women have felt and swept the falling shards. Thousands celebrated her Senate seat win and even more were captivated when she picked apart presidential candidates at debates - especially Biden. Her one-liners were unforgettable. Until we remembered that she honed those argumentative skills in court as a prosecutor, including during
fights to uphold wrongful convictions.
Then, there’s the fatigue. Progressives will have to defend the California senator’s personal identity, while maneuvering against her political identity. Political accession and racism go together like stars and stripes. First Lady Michelle Obama was horribly depicted as an ape. President Donald Trump called Congresswoman Maxine Waters a “low IQ individual.” Just weeks ago, a congressman called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez “disgusting” and a “fucking bitch.” Squad members Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Talib regularly experience xenophobic, Islamophobic, and racist attacks, intensified whenever they offer statements around social justice. Like the rest of these women, Senator Harris deserves safety and protection from harm. Black women, especially her sorors, will likely be her first line of defense.
Yet the defense against racist, sexist attacks must not interfere with the necessary offense required to push the Biden-Harris political ticket, for people who choose to play the electoral politics game. When activists criticized President Barack Obama, we were scathingly reminded how hard it was for him to be a Black man in the White House. He had significant executive power and influence to shift resources, call for legislation, and even free people from prison (which his own administration seemingly neglected). We were told to wait. Then, after eight years, we were told that too much was at stake to organize for free college, universal healthcare, the end to police and prison violence, and a clean planet. Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” calls this “do it slow:”
But that’s just the trouble, ‘Do it slow’
Desegregation, ‘Do it slow’
Mass participation, ‘Do it slow’ Reunification, ‘Do it slow’
Do things gradually, ‘Do it slow’
But bring more tragedy, ‘Do it slow’ Since the song’s release, the time seems to never be right to push politicians towards progress.
No more slow.No more imaginary ancestral, postmortem pleas on who died so that we can vote today. People fought and died for lots of reasons alongside voting, but most importantly, for the right of self-determination, which moderates defend for the right and dismiss for the left. No more.
This generational fatigue, from Nina Simone to Nina Turner, from Fannie Lou Hamer to Cori Bush, compounds with the political fatigue of doing progressive work around a party that undermines progressive values. Vice President Biden and Senator Harris will be determined to prove that their party has not been hijacked by “the radical left,” as Vice President Mike Pence described today. He continued, “So given their promises of higher taxes, open borders, socialized medicine, and abortion on demand, it’s no surprise that he chose Senator Harris.” This inaccurate characterization is an unfortunate tactic that will push the BidenHarris ticket further to the right. Together, Biden and Harris might still reject universal healthcare during the deadliest pandemic in recent memory - a death every 80 seconds. Together, they will promise expensive “common sense” police reform to a movement against senseless police spending. And together, they will affirm the power of the Black vote, while daring, do you really think you have any other choice?
I am reluctant to say that Biden and Harris can be pushed. My hope of being wrong is greater than my fear of being right. That hope comes from countless activists who organize across the state and local level, who are vigorously defending democracy on their blocks and creating care in their families and communities. That hope comes from studying Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who, facing impossible odds and considerable violence and no resources, decided to forge an alternative to the political establishment. Hamer asks, “Is this America, the land of the free and home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?”
If we must support politicians of color seeking office, let’s especially protect the ones in Hamer’s tradition, who risk their lives resisting white supremacy, Republicans, and moderate Democrats. And if we want to truly honor Black women’s labor and fatigue to change this country, the cost will be significantly higher than the price of the ticket to run it.
Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist. She is also a social movement lawyer and writer based in Washington DC