If you are in any way active in Democratic politics, or even just on social media, you will probably have heard the phrases “Vote like black women” and “Listen to black women.” These refer to the power that black women have as a constituency within the party, the consistency with which they vote blue, and the potential that they have to sway elections. But yet, for a party who says those things, we far too often leave black women to fight and stand alone.
When Tulsi Gabbard lied about Kamala Harris’s record in the July debate, Kamala Harris was left to stand alone. The claims were debunked by independent fact-checkers, yet not one person in the Democratic field rushed to defend Harris’s integrity. In contrast, many of them did rush to Tulsi Gabbard’s defense when Hillary Clinton suggested that somebody in the primary was being groomed for a third party run. Many of them did rush to Joe Biden’s defense when Julián Castro jabbed at him in the September debate.
When Kamala Harris called for Donald Trump’s Twitter to be suspended because of the threats that it causes to people’s safety, particularly black people and people of color, she stood alone. Not one of her Democratic colleagues in the primary backed her up. Elizabeth Warren scoffed in her face when she brought it up at the debate, as if the notion was ridiculous to begin with. Primarily white pundits on social media ridiculed her. (When you’re sent a pipe bomb in the mail by someone inspired by Trump’s tweets, tell us again about how ridiculous it is.)
On Friday, when Kamala Harris said she would boycott the Criminal Justice -forum at Benedict College in protest of a sponsoring organization who gave Trump an award and prohibited Benedict students from attending the event, she stood alone. Her colleague Cory Booker, who often calls her his “sister”, went so far as to not-so-subtly call her out on Twitter for her protest, with little regard for what she was actually protesting. In his speech at the event, Booker praised Benedict College for ditching the sponsor, with no mention of Kamala Harris, whose protest was what caused the sponsor to be ditched.
When Trump attacked Harris on Twitter on Saturday morning over her protest, or when his New Hampshire campaign chair Al Baldasaro brought back some good old birtherism later that day, the silence of her colleagues was, again, deafening.
Kamala Harris stood on principle, but she had to stand alone. The fact that the entire composition of the event was changed as a result of her protest speaks to the power an individual with moral clarity and determination can have. Harris often tells young people at her events: “You never have to ask anyone permission to lead, you just lead.” It seems that she lives by her own advice.
But it shouldn’t be that the black woman is having to stand alone. It shouldn’t be that she’s dismissed when she expresses concerns that Trump’s rhetoric on Twitter has real-life consequences, particularly for people who are not white. It shouldn’t be that she’s the only one protesting against Trump being given an award on criminal justice (talk about irony) and HBCU students being told to stay in their dorms while he was on campus.
It’s a pattern we see far too often in media, too. People love to point out how much they value black women and their voices. Yet, when a qualified black woman dares to actually run for higher office, that notion of solidarity too often disappears. People love the idea of a black woman running for office, until she actually does it. The self-proclaimed allies often sit on their hands when that black woman is unfairly attacked. And as exemplified by Harris’s run, the concerns she lends her voice to are then deemed “trivial”, or dismissed as “political stunts” by commentators.
We have not seen an example of this on the national stage in a long time, because we haven’t seen many black women run for president. But the way Kamala Harris is being made to stand alone, and the way her candidacy is being erased in media, should not go unnoticed, or unchecked. If we truly are a party that values black women – not just in theory, but in practice – we will all have to do better.