I was driving in my car alone, headed home, around 5:30 in the evening, when I heard the news. It came from a prerecorded quick blurb on KJLH radio, congratulating Kamala Harris as Joe Biden\u2019s historic vice-presidential pick. Later, when I got home, I saw black women crying on TV about the significance of her selection. I saw Indian women on Instagram doing the same thing. While I too was elated by the progress her selection represents, unlike with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, this wasn\u2019t a first that was surprising to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps if it would have happened in July of 2019 it would be. But as the months rolled on, they brought with them a set of circumstances that served as rungs on a ladder leading up to the inevitability that a black woman would be Joe Biden\u2019s choice for a running mate. Black women and even black men made it pretty clear he had to dance with the ones who brought him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While securing the VP spot as a Black and Asian woman is of course impressive, especially given these still ever sexist and racist times, what I found even more noteworthy was Kamala\u2019s ability to take it to Joe Biden in a presidential debate, not apologize for it even as Biden\u2019s cronies leaked out disparaging comments about her ambition, and still get the pick. Now that, to me, is some feat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Going against the boss or someone who has the potential to be the boss, however righteous (or not) the cause, is often a career-ending move. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I worked as a ticket seller at Disneyland, I called out people who were over me (even people who were simply liked by people who were over me), a move that dismantled any chance for me to grow in the company. I was denied opportunities to promote again and again. I worked there for almost seven years and never moved up once. Or take the case of Ashley Bianco, who was fired shortly after starting her job at CBS once her old employer ABC called to inform them that she leaked a video that made the alphabet network look bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those are just a couple of examples I can think of. But the damaging outcome of challenging authority or speaking truth to power is so ubiquitously known, regardless of your race, gender or industry, that most of us don\u2019t dare attempt it. And yet for Kamala it helped propel her to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that she\u2019s the pick, critics like to remind us of her failed presidential campaign, which saw her make an early exit from the race, as if there weren\u2019t 20-plus others who ultimately suffered the same fate. Time, however, has proven her exit strategy to be a lesson in turning lemons into lemonade. \u00a0What at the time may have looked like she gave in too quickly, dropping out before the first votes (or whatever they call it during a caucus) were cast in Iowa, while other long shots remained in the race, turns out to have been an astute calculation. Instead of wasting her time with a doomed campaign, she cut her losses and pivoted, capitalizing on the gains she made during her presidential run, and beforehand, to position herself as an ideal VP for the one left standing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. When 2020 rolled in, opportunity began presenting itself like a flood for Kamala. After encountering rough waters in Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina blacks threw Joe Biden\u2019s drowning campaign a much-needed life preserver, helping him enjoy rather smooth sailing to the nomination. Then the coronavirus flared up in the US, disproportionately affecting black and Hispanic people all across the country. There was job loss, and essential workers worrying if they would have enough PPE for workplace safety amongst other issues. Ahmaud Arbrey was lynched. Amy Cooper displayed an oft untold side of white-liberalism in New York, while George Floyd was being murdered by police on a Minneapolis street. Then there\u2019s Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and far too many more dead to name. There were protests and demands. And of course Joe Biden\u2019s gaffs such as the infamous, \u201cyou ain\u2019t black,\u201d line. All of it was opportunity. Let\u2019s just say Kamala Harris was prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She made the most of her senate presence, gaining a reputation as a tough as nails questioner during hearings. Mere days after his Super Tuesday dominance, she enthusiastically endorsed Biden. She maintained her media presence, appearing on shows to bash President Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and throwing her support behind the Black Lives Matter movement. But most importantly, she amassed a loyal following \u2013 they call themselves the K-Hive \u2013 that went hard for her, even after she suspended her campaign, always making her a top contender for the VP spot she eventually secured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though post media-coverage largely overshadowed her acceptance speech by the fiery address President Obama gave just prior, we would all be remiss not to pay closer attention to the powerful message her words conveyed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sure it was filled with all the usual suspects \u2013 self-introduction, family appreciation and promises to help move the country forward\u2014 but Kamala\u2019s speech didn\u2019t leave it there, oh no. Just as her historic selection is redefining who is seen as vice presidential, she used language in her speech to redefine the narrative around the word chaos, much like Michelle Obama reappropriated the phrase, it is what it is,\u201d a couple nights prior. While Trump used it almost as a dismissal of deaths from the coronavirus, Michelle used it as a declaration that Trump was not fit to be president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chaos: It\u2019s a word so often used to cast aspersions on protests and riots like the ones that ensued in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s death.[i]<\/a> Yet with one pointed statement, \u201cThe constant chaos leaves us adrift,\u201d the raucous word was redirected back at the Trump administration instead. It was the first line in a series of assertions including, \u201cThe incompetence makes us feel afraid,\u201d and \u201cThe callousness makes us feel alone,\u201d to make that case that Trump is a failed president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No doubt that callousness she refers to is a repudiation of President Trump\u2019s response to the coronavirus pandemic which has resulted in millions of confirmed cases in the United States in less than six months, and left more than 170,000 Americans dead and counting. It\u2019s a referendum on his approach to race relations, where he\u2019s spewed incendiary comments via Twitter, echoing the hate of a bygone racist under the guise of law and order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These words were a signal that Kamala Harris is ready to usher in a new era where the days of women, and in particular black women, being defined by others are over. Or as it\u2019s said, the trap you set for someone else will be your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was also able to speak more candidly about racism than any other person I can recall in a convention, tying it into the disproportionate effect the virus has had on black and Hispanic people by saying , \u201cThis virus, it has no eyes, and yet it knows exactly how we see each other, and how we treat each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And just in case you were under the assumption that the efforts to expedite the creation of a vaccination also address the lopsided way in which the coronavirus affects the races, she finishes that part of her speech off with, \u201cAnd let\u2019s be clear, there\u2019s no vaccine for racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As her speech went on, so did her attack on President Trump\u2019s record, hitting him in the area where he not only polls best, but also where he beats Joe Biden: the economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Donald Trump lauds the gains of the stock market, and low-income free neighborhoods for suburban housewives (a position that has been condemned as racist, but is also classist as hell) as proof of a booming economy, he \u2013 nor anyone in his camp for that matter \u2013 doesn\u2019t seem to realize how tone-deaf that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s completely overlooking the lifestyles of millions of people who lost their jobs. He\u2019s overlooking the millions of low-income workers, and part-time workers, some of whom do not have healthcare, some of whom can barely pay their bills, and many of whom, likely knows nothing about the stock market. And that\u2019s even before the pandemic hit. Howeverin her speech, Kamala Harris pounced on that miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, she positioned herself and Joe Biden as the ones who would be, \u201cbuilding an economy that doesn\u2019t leave anyone behind.\u201d And where, \u201ca good paying job is the floor not the ceiling.\u201d In doing so, she was making the case that while there may be some similarities between government and corporate America, ultimately you can\u2019t run a country like you run a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC said, indeed that is the gift of Kamala\u2019s candidacy. Unlike most if not all women in politics before her, she\u2019s been determined not to walk the tightrope betweennice and tough, or steep herself too deep in the camps of either option. Instead she\u2019s been able to do both. While she\u2019ll still have to color within the lines if she wants to continue down the road of progress, she\u2019s already wasted no time expanding the margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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