For Black Women, Kamala Harris’ Historic Run Brings Excitement Mixed With Racism Concerns

Like many Americans, psychotherapist Akua K. Boateng’s group texts exploded on Sunday afternoon: “Did you hear Joe Biden is dropping out? Did you hear he endorsed Kamala Harris?”
The most spirited conversation centered around Harris.
“I would say that the undertone of the group chat was cautious optimism when it came to talking about Kamala,” Boateng, who’s Black, told HuffPost. “For better or worse, Black women are centered when the odds are great. We know how to fight the greatest opposition.”
Boateng ― and many Black women like her ― are optimistic about the potential to see history made with Harris in the running: She would be the first female president, the first Black female president, and the first Asian American president. (Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, and a proud graduate of Howard University, a historically black college.
That enthusiasm was on full display on Sunday night when “Win With Black Women,” a network of Black women grassroots organizers, hosted a call with 40,000 participants who raised over a million dollars for Harris. (Over 90,000 people logged into the Zoom call, but not all made it into the room.)
The excitement over the eleventh-hour candidate change has something to do with the optics of the election now, too: As some women have said, if Harris were to beat former President Donald Trump, there would be a kind of poetic justice to it, given his history of sexist and racist remarks.
As a writer, my favorite ending to Donald Trump’s story would be him losing to a black woman.
The cautious part of the equation is equally warranted, though. Even supporters wonder if America is ready for a Black woman president or if anti-Black prejudice and misogyny will jeopardize her electability.
Critics are already questioning Harris’ qualifications and asking if she’s nothing more than a “diversity” (or DEI) hire despite her substantial career. (Before her selection as Biden’s vice presidential candidate, Harris was the San Francisco district attorney, the California attorney general and a U.S. senator.)
Sometimes, the racism and sexism aren’t thinly veiled at all. Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau is already warning that Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel in a way that will be even more ominous than Hillary because she’ll bring a racial component and she’s younger.”
It’s nothing new for Harris: In 2020, disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz led a study on gendered abuse and disinformation against women political candidates; it uncovered 336,000 pieces of abuse and disinformation targeting the 13 women candidates ― and 78% of it was against Harris.
While there were racist narratives during the Obama era, Harris is additionally facing a number of sexualized attacks. Jankowicz told NPR earlier this week: Suggestions that Harris “slept her way to the top,” for instance, and transphobic comments about how she must be a man because otherwise, how could she have gotten to such a high position of power?
That kind of “how did she get here?” and “why does she deserve to be here?” skepticism is something that Black women get “from the day they’re born,” said Nicole Holliday, an acting associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
“It rolls off of us because people talk to us and about us like this all the time,” she said.
Such criticism highlights the underlying issues of misogynoir, a term Black feminist writer and Northwestern professor Moya Bailey coined in 2008 to describe the combined force of anti-Black racism and misogyny that Black women often receive.
“I think we’re definitely going to see some of that in the run-up to the election,” the professor said.
Still, the wariness Holliday is feeling ― her concern that prejudice will undermine Harris’ public service record ― is co-mingling with something more buzzy and rare to feel when it comes to politics: Hopefulness.
“I’m optimistic because there’s nothing that they can say to her that people have not been saying to her entire life: She’s not Black enough, she’s not Indian enough. She is too progressive. She only got here by manipulating men,” she said.
If Harris and Trump debate ― the former president said he’s willing to do so on Tuesday ― Holliday thinks Harris will wipe the floor with him. “She’s been preparing her entire life for this.”
“It reminds me of when Ketanji Brown Jackson was appointed to the Supreme Court, and I saw a lot of posts on social media talking about how good she had to be every single moment of her entire life, how beyond reproach every decision she made as a judge before had to be for her to get to that point,” Holliday said.
Joquina Reed, a writer and DEI consultant, was on the Zoom call Sunday night. While she’s excited about what could be a history-making election, she’s also prepared to be exhausted by the end of it.
Black women have played vital roles in voter mobilization and turnout for years. Reed hopes that this demographic won’t have to carry another election on their back this year. Others need to mobilize as well, she said.
“Who is going to make a choice, to invest their money, but also to invest their time to ensure the election results?” she said. “Because Black women feel that this investment in time, resources and money is an investment in the future and an investment in living in a freer country.”
Given the general stress of this election ― and the racial and sexist overtones likely to color it as well ― therapist DeAvila Ford said it will be important for Black women to set boundaries from now until November.
“Obviously, it’s important to stay informed about current events, but it’s equally crucial to set boundaries on your media consumption,” she told HuffPost.
“Constant exposure to negative news can be overwhelming, so schedule specific times to check the news and stick to them, and make sure to include breaks to decompress,” Ford said.
Boateng, the psychotherapist quoted earlier, suggests Black women surround themselves with people who celebrate and humanize what’s going on and quiet any group chats or texts from people that send link after link of negativity.
“Consider weekend walks and therapeutic brunches,” she said. “We’re going to need those safe sisters that hold space for processing.”
And know it’s OK to feel optimism, too ― even in tumultuous, uncertain times.
As Slate staff writer Jenée Desmond-Harris tweeted on the subject on Sunday: “I love how we live in such awful times that everyone is like ‘embarrassed to say I feel a little hopeful,’ ‘don’t quote me but I feel a little hopeful,’ ‘I’ll be discussing it with my therapist but I feel a little hopeful.’”
Zoila Darton, the owner of a creative marketing agency, is among those giving herself space to feel genuine excitement this week.
Darton acknowledges the criticism of some of Harris’ policies from progressives ― particularly her stance on criminal justice during her time as a prosecutor in California ― but she’s also drawn to her as a mixed-race Black woman herself.
“She feels like my friends, she feels like my friend’s moms, a woman who has lived and worked really, really hard to leap over bounds and obstacles to get where she has to go,” she told HuffPost.
Darton likes that Harris has kept her sense of humor and thinks that the “Cackling Kamala” nickname that Trump and his team seem to be floating could work as an asset.
“I love that MAGA is always making fun of how much she laughs,” she said. “God bless her laughter. She is a Black woman ― a Black and Asian woman ― in America who has worked her way up to vice president. The fact that she even has any sense of humor at all is a blessing because it is hard, hard, hard work.”
As a mom of two young children, Darton is especially excited about what a Harris victory would mean for her little girl.
“I can’t wait for my daughter to experience having a female president, a Black president, an Asian president ― not a vice president, but a president,” Darton said. “I can’t wait for my daughter to grow up in that world.”