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<h1>The Complexity of Harris’ Historic Candidacy</h1>

<p>In a single weekend, Americans went from expecting a presidential race between two elderly straight white men to an election between two people of demographic polar opposites. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, has generated the same sort of excitement among the liberal party’s stalwarts as did Barack Obama and then Hillary Clinton when they won their party’s nominations. In 2008, Obama’s supporters declared “Yes, we can.” In 2016, Clinton’s backers proudly proclaimed, “I’m with her.” Now in 2024, we can expect “Yes, we Kam” signs to become ubiquitous within liberal enclaves across the nation.&nbsp;</p>



<p>It’s past time that a woman—and especially a woman of color—occupied the Oval Office. In a <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/growth/2023/08/31/multiracial-nation-democracy-growing-pains" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nation as multiracial as the United States</a>, it makes sense to have racial and gender diversity in the halls of power. On that point alone, Harris’ candidacy is exciting. But politics is about much more than demographic representation.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>It is a strange, new phenomenon for women of color like me to see a brown-skinned woman come this close to the highest office in the country. Many of us hate the idea of elections as popularity contests and are genuinely turned off by the emotional attachments that some voters form toward candidates, lifting them up as saviors. But we live in a nation where Harris’ racial and gender identity are deeply politicized. Republicans have already rushed to dismiss her as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/opinion/jd-vance-kamala-harris.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“DEI candidate”</a> (based on the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion), a telling opening salvo in an election that will inevitably be framed as a referendum on whether women of color are full human beings, rather than which issues and policies best meet the country’s needs.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As people of color in the U.S., we live with the ugly racial politics of respectability: the idea that if someone who looks like us fails to meet dominant white culture’s standards for “propriety”—if a person of color is deeply flawed or if they commit a crime, for instance—all people of color are to blame. Harris’ inevitable missteps and human imperfections will be weaponized and used as justification to further deny women of color political power and agency. Of course, as the prior two presidential administrations have demonstrated, the shortcomings of white male leaders are rarely seen as negative reflections on all white men.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In other words, for women of color, Harris is us, and we are Harris, whether we like it or not. And I, for one, don’t like it one bit. I want demographic <em>and</em> political representation. After all, wealthy white men have had both for generations.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The attacks on Harris were ugly enough in 2020 when Biden picked her to be his running mate. Every right-wing internet meme, every racist and sexist insult emerging from Trump’s mouth, felt as though it was aimed at women of color as a whole—a sector of U.S. society that still has the <a href="https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/lack-of-women-in-federal-level-politics-in-the-united-states" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lowest democratic representation</a> in federal government. And while we work to withstand this escalation of hateful, often violent rhetoric, we must simultaneously find ways to focus on—and assess for ourselves—the policies she actually espouses.</p>



<p>What I want to know is <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2024/07/23/harris-biden-president-election-courage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">whether Harris will disavow herself</a> from the Biden administration’s enthusiastic financing and arming of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Will she <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/harriss-support-for-gaza-cease-fire-hints-at-foreign-policy-shift-bbe8dc2a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pull back U.S. support</a> from the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/19/world-court-finds-israel-responsible-apartheid" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">apartheid state</a>?</p>



<p>I’d love to know whether her domestic economic policies are going to be as progressive as Biden’s—or more so. How much will she <a href="https://www.levernews.com/bidenomics-isnt-working-for-working-people/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">improve on “Bidenomics”?</a></p>



<p>Indeed, what will Harris do on climate change, prisons and policing (a particularly salient question given her history as a prosecutor and California attorney general), the Supreme Court, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, gun laws, immigration reform, or education?&nbsp;</p>



<p>These are the issues that matter.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Meanwhile, celebrating the fact that Harris will face off against Donald Trump as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/22/harris-trump-prosecutor-felon/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">former prosecutor against a convicted felon</a> is not helpful. The deadly toll of policing and prisons in the U.S. has been felt most seriously in Black and Brown communities. Think about the fact that those attending the Republican National Convention (RNC) held up pro-police and anti-immigrant signs saying “<a href="https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/715-rmw-rnc-240716.jpg?q=w_1480,c_fill" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Back the Blue</a>” and “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/usha-vance-rnc-immigration-mass-deportation-rcna162492" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mass Deportations Now</a>.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Although Harris ought to be viewed as “blue” in such a context—not because she’s a Democrat but because she is California’s former “<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kamala-harris-top-cop-2024-election-republicans-democrats-rcna163062#:~:text=Over%20the%20next%20several%20years,crime%20reputation%20as%20district%20attorney.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">top cop</a>”—the RNC’s attendees likely understood that policing and immigration enforcement are white supremacist institutions, regardless of whether their enforcers sometimes have non-white faces.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Ultimately, the right will make Harris out to be far more aggressive than she is likely to be as president. The left will expect she’ll do nothing right, while those in the center might project their wildest dreams on to her as the savior of the nation. Most likely, if she becomes president, she’ll be a complicated version of all three.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Savvy voters understand that elections—especially in a system designed to dilute our vote through the electoral college—are about making strategic choices that get us closer to realizing the world we want to live in. Seasoned activists, keen political observers, and most people who have paid attention to modern history, know that the real work of accountability happens between elections. And the 2024 election is about all that—<em>and</em> dealing a death blow to fascism and white supremacy.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Thinking dispassionately about the election in such a manner is going to be harder than ever for people who look like Kamala Harris: South Asian women like me, Black women, and those who are the beautiful products of both South Asian and Black ancestry.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Many of us want Harris to be held to the same high standards that we held Biden, Obama, Clinton, and other politicians to. It’s likely that she will be no better or no worse on issues than her Democratic predecessors, except that the expectations on her will be higher by virtue of her demographics. By the same token, the pressure on her to prove she won’t be biased toward people of color will be high too. Already, media pundits are advising her to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/opinion/kamala-harris-democrats.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3hjOMxdRPCSNJvLv2zEMxBxuhplugNsyGtGtlRo9pqTfgNsMwJLchGWvE_aem_N13skShXkPxRRbjjbv8--w" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tack toward the center</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In the end, a president is going to allow themselves to be pushed on some issues and not on others. For example, a centrist such as Joe Biden moved to the left on domestic issues, largely because he felt grassroots pressure to do so. Yet on arming Israel in its genocide in Gaza, he refused to budge, no matter how high the political cost. Harris will likely be similar, except she’ll face the added pressures of embodying the sort of person the hard right fears and loathes.</p>



<p>If Harris becomes president, women of color will lead movements to hold her accountable. At the same time, we will become proxies for her, and the racist and sexist assaults she faces will impact us as well.&nbsp;</p>



<p>So here’s the main memo: Your brown-skinned sisters are <em>not</em> going to be OK between now and November. We neither want you to fawn over Harris and uncritically throw your support behind her, nor do we want to allow Trump to retake office. Rather, vote as though your life depends on it—because ours does. And then work to hold accountable whoever occupies the White House next January.</p>

<p>This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org">Yes! Magazine</a> at <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2024/07/30/kamala-harris-women-president">https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2024/07/30/kamala-harris-women-president</a>.</p><link href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2024/07/30/kamala-harris-women-president" rel="canonical"/><p>Yes! Magazine is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of ... . Learn more at <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org">Yes! Magazine</a></p><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://www.yesmagazine.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=120431&ga4=G-74QJNNY44Z" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

The Complexity of Harris’ Historic Candidacy

In a single weekend, Americans went from expecting a presidential race between two elderly straight white men to an election between two people of demographic polar opposites. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, has generated the same sort of excitement among the liberal party’s stalwarts as did Barack Obama and then Hillary Clinton when they won their party’s nominations. In 2008, Obama’s supporters declared “Yes, we can.” In 2016, Clinton’s backers proudly proclaimed, “I’m with her.” Now in 2024, we can expect “Yes, we Kam” signs to become ubiquitous within liberal enclaves across the nation.

It’s past time that a woman—and especially a woman of color—occupied the Oval Office. In a nation as multiracial as the United States, it makes sense to have racial and gender diversity in the halls of power. On that point alone, Harris’ candidacy is exciting. But politics is about much more than demographic representation.

It is a strange, new phenomenon for women of color like me to see a brown-skinned woman come this close to the highest office in the country. Many of us hate the idea of elections as popularity contests and are genuinely turned off by the emotional attachments that some voters form toward candidates, lifting them up as saviors. But we live in a nation where Harris’ racial and gender identity are deeply politicized. Republicans have already rushed to dismiss her as the “DEI candidate” (based on the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion), a telling opening salvo in an election that will inevitably be framed as a referendum on whether women of color are full human beings, rather than which issues and policies best meet the country’s needs.

As people of color in the U.S., we live with the ugly racial politics of respectability: the idea that if someone who looks like us fails to meet dominant white culture’s standards for “propriety”—if a person of color is deeply flawed or if they commit a crime, for instance—all people of color are to blame. Harris’ inevitable missteps and human imperfections will be weaponized and used as justification to further deny women of color political power and agency. Of course, as the prior two presidential administrations have demonstrated, the shortcomings of white male leaders are rarely seen as negative reflections on all white men.

In other words, for women of color, Harris is us, and we are Harris, whether we like it or not. And I, for one, don’t like it one bit. I want demographic and political representation. After all, wealthy white men have had both for generations.

The attacks on Harris were ugly enough in 2020 when Biden picked her to be his running mate. Every right-wing internet meme, every racist and sexist insult emerging from Trump’s mouth, felt as though it was aimed at women of color as a whole—a sector of U.S. society that still has the lowest democratic representation in federal government. And while we work to withstand this escalation of hateful, often violent rhetoric, we must simultaneously find ways to focus on—and assess for ourselves—the policies she actually espouses.

What I want to know is whether Harris will disavow herself from the Biden administration’s enthusiastic financing and arming of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Will she pull back U.S. support from the apartheid state?

I’d love to know whether her domestic economic policies are going to be as progressive as Biden’s—or more so. How much will she improve on “Bidenomics”?

Indeed, what will Harris do on climate change, prisons and policing (a particularly salient question given her history as a prosecutor and California attorney general), the Supreme Court, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, gun laws, immigration reform, or education?

These are the issues that matter.

Meanwhile, celebrating the fact that Harris will face off against Donald Trump as a former prosecutor against a convicted felon is not helpful. The deadly toll of policing and prisons in the U.S. has been felt most seriously in Black and Brown communities. Think about the fact that those attending the Republican National Convention (RNC) held up pro-police and anti-immigrant signs saying “Back the Blue” and “Mass Deportations Now.”

Although Harris ought to be viewed as “blue” in such a context—not because she’s a Democrat but because she is California’s former “top cop”—the RNC’s attendees likely understood that policing and immigration enforcement are white supremacist institutions, regardless of whether their enforcers sometimes have non-white faces.

Ultimately, the right will make Harris out to be far more aggressive than she is likely to be as president. The left will expect she’ll do nothing right, while those in the center might project their wildest dreams on to her as the savior of the nation. Most likely, if she becomes president, she’ll be a complicated version of all three.

Savvy voters understand that elections—especially in a system designed to dilute our vote through the electoral college—are about making strategic choices that get us closer to realizing the world we want to live in. Seasoned activists, keen political observers, and most people who have paid attention to modern history, know that the real work of accountability happens between elections. And the 2024 election is about all that—and dealing a death blow to fascism and white supremacy.

Thinking dispassionately about the election in such a manner is going to be harder than ever for people who look like Kamala Harris: South Asian women like me, Black women, and those who are the beautiful products of both South Asian and Black ancestry.

Many of us want Harris to be held to the same high standards that we held Biden, Obama, Clinton, and other politicians to. It’s likely that she will be no better or no worse on issues than her Democratic predecessors, except that the expectations on her will be higher by virtue of her demographics. By the same token, the pressure on her to prove she won’t be biased toward people of color will be high too. Already, media pundits are advising her to tack toward the center.

In the end, a president is going to allow themselves to be pushed on some issues and not on others. For example, a centrist such as Joe Biden moved to the left on domestic issues, largely because he felt grassroots pressure to do so. Yet on arming Israel in its genocide in Gaza, he refused to budge, no matter how high the political cost. Harris will likely be similar, except she’ll face the added pressures of embodying the sort of person the hard right fears and loathes.

If Harris becomes president, women of color will lead movements to hold her accountable. At the same time, we will become proxies for her, and the racist and sexist assaults she faces will impact us as well.

So here’s the main memo: Your brown-skinned sisters are not going to be OK between now and November. We neither want you to fawn over Harris and uncritically throw your support behind her, nor do we want to allow Trump to retake office. Rather, vote as though your life depends on it—because ours does. And then work to hold accountable whoever occupies the White House next January.

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