Kamala Is A Sister
I am more emotional about Kamala Harris’s ascension than I thought I would be. The pick is not a surprise, she was always a leading contender, and yet seeing a Black woman as the VP nominee feels so powerful and empowering and inspiring.
For all the Black women who know how to lead a family or an institution or a department we finally have one nearing the political glass ceiling. And in Kamala we have someone who is truly phenomenal and formidable and inspiring.
I have known Kamala for over ten years. She’s close friends with some close friends of mine. We met on the Vineyard when she was the DA of San Francisco. We’ve had many dinners and hangouts over the years as she’s risen to AG and then Senator and she has always come across as an incredibly impressive person. She’s strong, fierce, brilliant, and loves to argue for sport, which I also love, so that helped us get along well.
For all of those who are carping about how Black she is or isn’t because her mom is from India and her husband is Jewish and blah blah blah—have a seat. Actually, send me your address so I can Amazon you all the seats because clearly you need to have them. Kamala is a sister. She’s from Oakland. She’s from Howard University and to hear her talk about the yard and to see her face light up at the memory of the yard, that space where she encountered so many great, vibrant, dynamic Black students, that is to see how much she loves Blackness and Black people. Look, Blackness is a performance. It’s far more in the way you choose to express yourself than it is in the genes. Yes, it’s also about your ancestry and we frown on people who have no Back family members and yet still try to present themselves as Black but if you try to attach a strict biological definition to Blackness you’ll get into a thorny tangle fairly quickly. The one drop rule is deeply problematic because it gives the decision of who’s Black to slaveholders. At its core Blackness is an identity performance that we feel in the tone of voice you use and see in the people you align yourself with and, yes, sense in the energy you radiate. This is not to advance some essentialist notion that would shove some people out of Blackness because they “do it wrong.” My 2012 book Who's Afraid Of Post-Blackness: What It Mean To Be Black Now was all about how there’s no singular way to be Black, there are many, many valid ways to perform it.
In that book I interviewed 105 Black people about what it means to be Black and one repeated issue I found is that all Black academics and intellectuals accepted the notion that Blackness is a performance while people from outside the academy sometimes rejected the idea saying things like, “I don’t perform Blackness, I just am.” This misunderstands the nature of personality as a performance that shifts given the audience—you don’t act exactly the same with your best friend as you do with your boss as you do with your grandmother. You shift your performance based on who’s watching because personality is a performance.
This is relevant because we now have people from the right and the left saying Kamala isn’t an African-American because she does not descend directly from American slaves. Again, it’s extremely problematic to allow long-dead slaveholders to define who is and isn’t Black. I refuse to give them that much power. The institution of slavery has had a lasting impact on the lives of Americans who are both Black and white whether or not you or your family was specifically engaged in slavery. American life was changed by slavery for all Americans. No American can opt out of the impact that slavery has had on America because their family wasn’t directly involved. When Kamala entered society as a clearly visible Black person she had to deal with the racist society that has risen up in the wake of American slavery. And the personality that she now has fits with the notion of Blackness that I have experienced from most of the Black people around me who are trying to find success, survival, and joy, in a world shaped by the society that has risen up in the wake of American slavery. To try to dampen Kamala’s success by somehow talking her out of Blackness is bizarre. She’s Black. And when you sit with her you know you’re sitting with a sister.
It will be thrilling for me, for my mom, for my wife, for my sister, for my daughter, and for my son to watch this phenomenal woman as President. I mean, aw fuck it, no I don’t. Yes she’s ambitious but not just that, she is indeed Presidential. She’s more than just ready on day one. She’s a President-In-Waiting. And if you knew her like I do that would make you extremely comfortable because Kamala exudes leadership. She is the sort of person you want flying the plane when things are bad. And right now things are bad. I am certain that one day, in four or eight years, Kamala will be running this country and doing it well.
I only wish I could see Shirley Chisholm’s reaction to all of this. Because this is the culmination of the journey she launched when she ran for President in 1972.
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