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Who's Afraid of Kamala Harris?
Who’s Afraid of Kamala Harris?When Democrats and Republicans allow campaign surrogates and supporters to push misogynistic and racist lines of attack against a black U.S. Senator, they expose themselves.
by Goldie Taylor
As Sen. Kamala Harris stepped onto the stage to announce her presidential candidacy, one could almost hear the political tides rumble and turn. During the rally, held in Oakland and only a few miles from where she was born and raised, Harris spoke with a clear-eyed sense of both time and place.
There was no naïveté and no feigned effort toward a mythical common ground on display. She did not so much call out to our higher angels as she did demand that we reject our lessers. There have been a flurry of comparisons to Barack Obama’s 2007 announcement speech from Springfield, Illinois, when thousands crowded onto the snowy state capitol. This was stronger.
...
Democrats, too, are feeling the new wind, and some are reacting to it as badly as you might expect. As the 2020 presidential primary begins in earnest, there are some folks who need to re-run the calculus on their political futures. Several strong candidates are testing the waters—Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Beto O’Rourke, and Corey Booker, among them—in a field expected to number two dozen or more hopefuls. Warren, Castro, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have already tossed their hats into the ring. The Harris candidacy, though long anticipated, changes the math for many of them.
It should be difficult to imagine Democrats slut-shaming an African-American woman. That is, if we didn’t know any better. Today, black women are the dominant force—if not the deciding factor—in national Democratic politics. Our rise exposes and jeopardizes their white privilege—which one does not lose based on ideology. For all of our increased political heft, there was always the assumption that they would remain “in charge.” Just as Barack Obama was and continues to be assailed by some of the left’s most prominent voices, Harris will face more of the same. It appears virulent misogyny is not beneath them.
More here --> https://www.thedailybeast.com/whos-afraid-of-kamala-harris?ref=home?ref=home?ref=home
There was no naïveté and no feigned effort toward a mythical common ground on display. She did not so much call out to our higher angels as she did demand that we reject our lessers. There have been a flurry of comparisons to Barack Obama’s 2007 announcement speech from Springfield, Illinois, when thousands crowded onto the snowy state capitol. This was stronger.
...
Democrats, too, are feeling the new wind, and some are reacting to it as badly as you might expect. As the 2020 presidential primary begins in earnest, there are some folks who need to re-run the calculus on their political futures. Several strong candidates are testing the waters—Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Beto O’Rourke, and Corey Booker, among them—in a field expected to number two dozen or more hopefuls. Warren, Castro, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have already tossed their hats into the ring. The Harris candidacy, though long anticipated, changes the math for many of them.
It should be difficult to imagine Democrats slut-shaming an African-American woman. That is, if we didn’t know any better. Today, black women are the dominant force—if not the deciding factor—in national Democratic politics. Our rise exposes and jeopardizes their white privilege—which one does not lose based on ideology. For all of our increased political heft, there was always the assumption that they would remain “in charge.” Just as Barack Obama was and continues to be assailed by some of the left’s most prominent voices, Harris will face more of the same. It appears virulent misogyny is not beneath them.
More here --> https://www.thedailybeast.com/whos-afraid-of-kamala-harris?ref=home?ref=home?ref=home
