The Presidency Is a “Black Job”
You should watch the video of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, as they waited backstage in Milwaukee as the call of delegates was livecast in Fiserv Forum, packed to the gills, the same venue where the GOP held their convention a very long month ago. As Gavin Newsom, in Chicago’s United Center, cast the last votes making the Vice President the formal nominee of the party, Harris and Walz stood together.
It’s time for us to do the right thing, and that is to elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States of America. California, we proudly cast our 400 and 82 votes for the next President, Kamala Harris.
The range of emotions that registered on Kamala’s face started with, perhaps, anxiety or perhaps a sense of unreality. As Newsom cast the votes, she seemed to focus — Walz, standing next to her backstage, had begun to go nuts. She bent her head back and began to register some kind of joy.
But then there was a moment where her eyes got big. She got an almost childlike expression in them, as if she couldn’t believe what just happened, couldn’t believe the enormity of it all.
Then it began to settle. Perhaps pride came in.
Finally she turned to Walz, gave him a high-five handshake, a hug. It’s only after that hug where she came away with a full joyful smile.
As I watched that video, I couldn’t help but think to the significant number of people who, as they were trying to get Joe Biden to drop off the ticket, were inventing reasons to pass over Kamala Harris.
Many people, white and Black, progressive and not, opined with certainty that the country was not ready to elect a Black woman.
There has been almost no discussion of that since the day, exactly a month ago, when Joe Biden endorsed her.
To be sure: the fact that she would be the first woman president, the first Black woman president, the first Asian-American president — people keep talking about that (though as several stories on the Convention noted, particularly in comparison with Hillary, Kamala is not dwelling on that).
To be equally sure, the challenge it presents is not something anyone is forgetting. Certainly Michelle Obama addressed the challenge before us in her speech, which started with a tribute to the memory of her own mother, Marian Robinson, who passed away in May, and paid tribute to Kamala’s mother, along the way. (In his speech, Obama also paid tribute to Robinson, likening her to his grandmother.)
After declaring there is no monopoly on what it means to be an American, Michelle described what it’s like to grow up without the privilege Trump has enjoyed.
Because no one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one.
Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation, not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others. She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt the business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third, or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No. We don’t get to change the rules, so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. No. We put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something.
That wasn’t necessarily a comment on race. Few Americans enjoy the privilege that Trump has.
But what followed was about race. Michelle turned to the attacks Donald Trump had launched on her and Barack.
It was the first time Michelle named Trump.
we know what comes next. We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth. My husband and I, sadly, know a little something about this. For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.
Then she flipped it all back on Donald Trump. The office of the Presidency is a “Black job” now.
Wait, I want to know: Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those “Black jobs”?
Michelle moved from there to name Trump’s misogyny and racism as a substitute for his own inadequacy. Later, she returned to those “who don’t want to vote for a woman,” but prescribed “Do something” when it happens.
We cannot be our own worst enemies. The minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, folks, we cannot start wringing our hands. We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is ‘just right.’ We cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala, instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.
You can read the rest here.
The First Black First Lady warned everyone. The shit is going to fly. But when it happens, you just have to Do Something to push back on the lies and racism and misogyny.
I don’t know whether, in the month since Biden endorsed Kamala, people set aside the belief that America is not ready to elect a Black woman, or just recommitted to making this happen regardless of the racism and sexism of America, in spite of it. Or maybe, for some, that was always just an excuse to ask for someone else.
I responded, back when people said the US was not ready for the first Black woman president, that with Dobbs on the ballot, with fascism on the ballot, after several elections in which Black women voters saved the country, a Black woman candidate may be the most logical choice. Indeed, as Trump has struggled, and usually failed, to come up with some attack on the Vice President that didn’t turn his dog whistles into a clarion call of racism, his insecurities about running against Kamala have made it harder for the press to normalize his racism.
Being bested by a smart, beautiful Black woman may be precisely the Kryptonite to Trump’s power the country has been looking for.
