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Kamala Harris Is Already Facing Sexist And Racist Attacks — And They’ll Only Get Worse
by UPenn Religious Studies and Africana Studies Professor Anthea Butler
Immediately after the announcement Tuesday that Sen. Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s selection for the vice president’s slot on the Democratic presidential ticket, the attacks and criticisms began flying across the web from conservatives and liberals alike. She’s “extraordinarily nasty.” She’s “a cop.” She’s too conservative — or she’s too liberal. She changes her mind constantly.
Funny how a competent, successful woman accomplishing something heretofore unprecedented seems to do that to people.
Harris’ story and rise to become the presumptive Democratic nominee for vice president — and the first Asian American and the first Black woman on any ticket — should be a story about the first-generation child of immigrants rising to the top of the political world through intellect, strategy and wit. Instead, the quest to tear apart her identity, her accomplishments and every single one of her missteps will continue on both sides of the aisle and in the media until Election Day in November.
Harris, a California Democrat, is furthermore now being singled out by conservatives because she is a child of immigrants from Jamaica and Indian: In the toxic racial environment of America, a past which was once lauded as American exceptionalism is now a reason to revive birtherism — the same ahistoric, anti-constitutional thinking once intended to deny President Barak Obama his elected office because of his father’s immigrant status.
The Twitter hashtag TrustBlackWomen got started in part because of Black women’s political savvy during the 2017 Alabama Senate race between Roy Moore and Doug Jones and our understanding of which candidates are worthy of our votes. (Black women also overwhelmingly voted against Trump in 2016.)
America, meanwhile, is still clearly roiling from having had exactly one African American president, having thereafter, with the overwhelming support of white people, elected a president who made his love for Confederate paraphernalia and its fans well known rather than a well-qualified white woman.
Harris achieved her presumptive nomination because of her skills and intellect — as well as her publicly demonstrated ability to dissect through the lies of this administration. Her elevation at this moment serves as bridge between the old politics of the Democratic Party as represented by men like Biden and the newer, progressive politics of the party represented by women like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and others.