By And while much of the criticism against her is nasty, vile and racist, that doesn’t make her completely without fault. And the fact that it’s either her or full-blown fascism, doesn’t preclude her from very necessary scrutiny.
In her newsletter Threadings, essayist and culture worker Ismatu Gwendolyn writes about how we as a public, miss the point entirely, when we focus our gaze on Kamala the meme, as opposed to Kamala the human and politician whose track record warrants critical examination.
Harris’ days as a prosecutor and attorney general provide the perfect fodder for this discourse, regardless of where you stand on whether or not she should be president. Harris was an outspoken critic of capital punishment, and she supported diversion programs for young offenders, but as California’s attorney general she led a team that defied a Supreme Court ruling to reduce the number of people in prison, which prevented the release of low-risk offenders.
Harris also fought for a law that raised the financial penalty and put parents in jail for up to a year, if their children missed at least 10 per cent of school time. She defended this anti-truancy policy in her first book Smart On Crime.
A common focus of her critics relies on a piece of misinformation that as California’s attorney general, Harris imprisoned 1500 Black men for minor marijuana offences. The claim is incorrect, and in fact, Harris has played a pivotal role in the Biden administration, offering pardons for federal marijuana possession convictions. She also stood behind the landmark legal changes that helped reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous and addictive drug.
But is Harris deserving of the halo effect that many Black folks seem to have bestowed on her? When thinking about her prosecutorial record, people simply refuse to apply nuance. There is a space between “it was her job to prosecute bad people” and “mass incarceration and the prison industrial system are evil,” and that space is where common sense should live. But I fear we're so committed to seeing political leaders reinforce the status quo that we can’t imagine — or be bold enough to demand — that they stand behind policy and action that is truly radical.
Then there’s Gaza. The bombardment and calculated annihilation of the Palestinian people is the most closely watched and broadly documented issue in our world right now, and the Biden-Harris administration has been firm in its commitment to “Israel’s right to defend itself.” As Ismatu reminds us, “We should be outraged that the Vice President of an administration aiding and abetting the most documented genocide in human history can peacefully run for office. That is a sham. That is embarrassing. Especially when that person has stated they do not plan on enforcing any sort of concession from the murderous Israeli regime.”
While Harris has called for a ceasefire and drawn attention to the humanitarian suffering of Palestinians, she has stopped short of supporting an arms embargo.
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If you’re looking for any clues as to how Harris plans to wield her position as the least-worst option, while also signalling that her turn as president will be a continuation of her predecessors’ fuelling of this genocide, look no further than what happened at an early August speech in Michigan. Seemingly frustrated at being interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters, she shot back, “If you want Donald Trump to win, say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” That oughta teach ‘em… I guess?
{https://x.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1821342048923844884}
In reality, this is a shameful response that betrays her party’s posture, that to secure the public’s full confidence, all she has to do is not be Trump.
{https://x.com/VP/status/1816639588066054648}
Being radically politically engaged means it’s not enough to make sure a fascist doesn’t become president. And for Harris to be effective in getting America somewhat on track to becoming an actual democracy, she has to be held to account.
Take her position on police brutality, for example. After George Floyd was murdered in 2020, she co-authored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which promises to establish a “framework to prevent and remedy racial profiling by law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels.”
The details of how they plan to do this are useless obfuscation and a waste of time. Radical change requires radical change-makers, and we’ve known for years that policing cannot be reformed and that the system as it is, needs to be dismantled entirely. If Harris becomes president, I guess we can trust that Americans will hear many a heartfelt condemnation of police brutality… but no real and meaningful disruption of the systems that make that brutality possible. So what is the point?
American voters are trapped in an impossible situation, but sanitizing and meme-fying Harris isn’t going to help them achieve the kind of just society they want. And now that she’s announced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz — another smiley politician with oodles of goodwill and a track record of “progressive” policies — it’s important that Black voters not be roped in by the allure of a leader who can actually string a sentence together and doesn’t think Africa is a shithole.
In a two-party system, it’s easy to see how the Trump years might traumatize even the most cynical of voters into seeking solace under the authority of the least-worst option. Still, that solace shouldn't come at the expense of the revolutionary political accountability that we’ve been chasing for the last several years, nor should it lull anyone into a false sense of safety with politicians who are only there to facilitate the continuance of America’s political status quo.
