In a single weekend, Individuals went from anticipating a presidential race between two aged straight white males to an election between two folks of demographic polar opposites. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Celebration nominee, has generated the identical form of pleasure among the many liberal celebration’s stalwarts as did Barack Obama after which Hillary Clinton after they received their celebration’s nominations. In 2008, Obama’s supporters declared “Sure, we will.” In 2016, Clinton’s backers proudly proclaimed, “I’m along with her.” Now in 2024, we will count on “Sure, we Kam” indicators to turn into ubiquitous inside liberal enclaves throughout the nation.
It’s previous time {that a} girl—and particularly a girl of colour—occupied the Oval Workplace. In a nation as multiracial as the USA, it is sensible to have racial and gender variety within the halls of energy. On that time alone, Harris’ candidacy is thrilling. However politics is about way more than demographic illustration.
It’s a unusual, new phenomenon for ladies of colour like me to see a brown-skinned girl come this near the very best workplace within the nation. Many people hate the thought of elections as recognition contests and are genuinely turned off by the emotional attachments that some voters type towards candidates, lifting them up as saviors. However we reside in a nation the place Harris’ racial and gender id are deeply politicized. Republicans have already rushed to dismiss her because the “DEI candidate” (based mostly on the acronym for variety, fairness, and inclusion), a telling opening salvo in an election that may inevitably be framed as a referendum on whether or not girls of colour are full human beings, moderately than which points and insurance policies greatest meet the nation’s wants.
As folks of colour within the U.S., we reside with the ugly racial politics of respectability: the concept that if somebody who appears like us fails to satisfy dominant white tradition’s requirements for “propriety”—if an individual of colour is deeply flawed or in the event that they commit a criminal offense, as an illustration—all folks of colour are accountable. Harris’ inevitable missteps and human imperfections will probably be weaponized and used as justification to additional deny girls of colour political energy and company. After all, because the prior two presidential administrations have demonstrated, the shortcomings of white male leaders are not often seen as adverse reflections on all white males.
In different phrases, for ladies of colour, Harris is us, and we’re Harris, whether or not we prefer it or not. And I, for one, don’t prefer it one bit. I need demographic and political illustration. In spite of everything, rich white males have had each for generations.
The assaults on Harris had been ugly sufficient in 2020 when Biden picked her to be his operating mate. Each right-wing web meme, each racist and sexist insult rising from Trump’s mouth, felt as if it was aimed toward girls of colour as a complete—a sector of U.S. society that also has the lowest democratic illustration in federal authorities. And whereas we work to resist this escalation of hateful, usually violent rhetoric, we should concurrently discover methods to deal with—and assess for ourselves—the insurance policies she truly espouses.
What I need is to know is whether or not Harris will disavow herself from the Biden administration’s enthusiastic financing and arming of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Will she pull again U.S. assist from the apartheid state?
I’d like to know whether or not her home financial insurance policies are going to be as progressive as Biden’s—or extra so. How a lot will she enhance on “Bidenomics”?
Certainly, what is going to Harris do on local weather change, prisons and policing (a very salient query given her historical past as a prosecutor and California legal professional basic), the Supreme Courtroom, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, gun legal guidelines, immigration reform, or training?
These are the problems that matter.
In the meantime, celebrating the truth that Harris will face off in opposition to Donald Trump as a former prosecutor in opposition to a convicted felon just isn’t useful. The lethal toll of policing and prisons within the U.S. has been felt most significantly in Black and Brown communities. Take into consideration the truth that these attending the Republican Nationwide Conference (RNC) held up pro-police and anti-immigrant indicators saying “Again the Blue” and “Mass Deportations Now.”
Though Harris must be seen as “blue” in such a context—not as a result of she’s a Democrat however as a result of she is California’s former “prime cop”—the RNC’s attendees possible understood that policing and immigration enforcement are white supremacist establishments, no matter whether or not their enforcers generally have non-white faces.
In the end, the precise will make Harris out to be much more aggressive than she is prone to be as president. The left will count on she’ll do nothing proper, whereas these within the middle may mission their wildest desires on to her because the savior of the nation. More than likely, if she turns into president, she’ll be a sophisticated model of all three.
Savvy voters perceive that elections—particularly in a system designed to dilute our vote via the electoral faculty—are about making strategic decisions that get us nearer to realizing the world we need to reside in. Seasoned activists, eager political observers, and most of the people who’ve paid consideration to fashionable historical past, know that the true work of accountability occurs between elections. And the 2024 election is about all that—and dealing a demise blow to fascism and white supremacy.
Pondering dispassionately in regards to the election in such a way goes to be tougher than ever for individuals who appear to be Kamala Harris: South Asian girls like me, Black girls, and people who are the attractive merchandise of each South Asian and Black ancestry.
Many people need Harris to be held to the identical excessive requirements that we held Biden, Obama, Clinton, and different politicians to. It’s possible that she will probably be no higher or no worse on points than her Democratic predecessors, besides that the expectations on her will probably be increased by advantage of her demographics. By the identical token, the stress on her to show she received’t be biased towards folks of colour will probably be excessive too. Already, media pundits are advising her to tack towards the middle.
In the long run, a president goes to permit themselves to be pushed on some points and never on others. For instance, a centrist akin to Joe Biden moved to the left on home points, largely as a result of he felt grassroots stress to take action. But on arming Israel in its genocide in Gaza, he refused to budge, regardless of how excessive the political price. Harris will possible be comparable, besides she’ll face the added pressures of embodying the form of individual the laborious proper fears and loathes.
If Harris turns into president, girls of colour will lead actions to carry her accountable. On the similar time, we’ll turn into proxies for her, and the racist and sexist assaults she faces will affect us as properly.
So right here’s the primary memo: Your brown-skinned sisters are not going to be OK between now and November. We neither need you to fawn over Harris and uncritically throw your assist behind her, nor can we need to permit Trump to retake workplace. Reasonably, vote as if your life relies on it—as a result of ours does. After which work to carry accountable whoever occupies the White Home subsequent January.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer time 2021, constructing on an extended and embellished profession in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated tv and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of unbiased and neighborhood radio stations. She can be Senior Correspondent with the Unbiased Media Institute’s Financial system for All mission the place she writes a weekly column. She is the writer of Rising Up: The Energy of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming guide is named Speaking About Abolition (Seven Tales Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Ladies’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Grasp’s in Astronomy from the College of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate levels in Physics and Astronomy from the College of Texas at Austin. Sonali displays on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx discuss of the identical identify. |
