If you don’t know what MVP Harris has been doing you haven’t been paying attention, or looking in the right places
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
Madam Vice President Kamala Harris is, in my opinion, the hardest working VP in recent memory. Her schedule is grueling — you’d know that if you’ve been following her — independent of what the U.S. mainstream media bothers to report. She is greeted with joy, appreciation, and respect wherever she goes, both here in the U.S. and outside of the country.
I’ve already posted about her recent groundbreaking trip to the Bahamas in “Caribbean Matters: VP Harris visits the Bahamas to meet with Caribbean leaders” as did other non-biased, mostly Black, U.S. media outlets, and the entire Caribbean media.
What has pissed me off ever since she took office are the questions raised about “What is she doing?” or “Where’s Kamala?” which are part and parcel of a not very subtle campaign to undermine her (and the Biden-Harris administration).
I was elated to see that Emily’s List just announced that they are going to help fight back against her erasure, and the misogynist campaign against her.
I hate to quote anything from Politico, since they have been part of the bash Kamala brigade — but I’ll hold my nose and post this:
Harris gets her cavalry: Top group plans to spend $10 million-plus to boost her
EMILY’s List has big plans to defend the vice president before the election.
EMILY’s List, the political action committee whose aim is to elect female candidates supportive of abortion rights, says it will be spending “tens of millions of dollars” to defend and prop up the vice president during the 2024 election.
[...]
“She is a boogeyman that Republicans can [and will] use when it comes to pushing their message,” a senior Republican strategist said, speaking anonymously to discuss election season strategy frankly. “A President Harris would be even worse than a President Biden because she campaigned as a progressive fighter and had to moderate herself when she became Biden’s running mate. And to be completely frank, she’s smart. She’s an accomplished prosecutor. She was a United States senator. And she does have the resume to match.”
Laphonza Butler, the president of EMILY’s List, told POLITICO that the effort is not to redefine but to “remind” voters of the politician that electrified enough of the party as a freshman Senator to have the juice to run for president. “We’re going to tell the story about who she is, what she’s done, support her at every turn and really push back against the massive misinformation and disinformation that’s been directed towards her since she’s been elected,” said Butler, a longtime Harris ally.
That’s great news! However I’m more interested in what each one of us can do to start now (if you haven’t already) in spreading the word about the work our MVP is doing as we move toward keeping the White House and Senate, and taking back the House. Harris is key — and we have to step up our support.
I have seen some people right here at Daily Kos make snide remarks about what she hasn’t been doing. If you see any such dreck — please use some of what I’m going to post here to edumacate them.
MVP Harris has her own social media accounts — which if you are following and retweeting — is a good start:
Here are her two Twitter accounts:
I can’t speak for other social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram — but did you know she also has a YouTube channel?
What you may not be aware of — are the heroic efforts of her supporters to get the word out.
For example — Laila (who currently has only 552 followers — let’s up her numbers) puts in an amazing effort to inform us on MVP’s doings.
Here’s what Leila posted for the entire 2022 year. This is a great “refresher course.” Take the time to review it:
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
Applause!!!
Next you should be following “best of kamala harris” on Twitter, or Instagram
I appreciate all the tweets and retweets of MVP’s doings:
Another account I follow is Sky/MVP supporter’s — she frequently posts MVP’s schedule:
There are a lot more individual accounts who report on the VP’s doings— but I think you get my drift. Right here at Daily Kos, Linda (lpeacock) has been posting an MVP roundup every morning in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup (APR) comments section (she also assiduously tweets about MVP). I do the same twice a week here in the Black Kos comments section.
So next time someone insinuates that Kamala Devi Harris ain’t doin’ nuthin, or ain’t an asset to the upcoming ticket — here are some handy receipts.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. Ebony: BEST MOMENTS FROM THE 76TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS
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The 76th Tony Awards opened like no other. Two-time host Ariana DeBose flipped the pages of a blank script and then performed in an opening number that was entirely instrumental, featuring dancers from several Broadway shows.
DeBose went on to explain that in deference to the Writers' Guild’s ongoing strike, she—and every presenter of the night—would be speaking off the cuff. The two teleprompters housed in the famed United Palace in Washington Heights, New York, where this year’s awards took place, would only be used as an award speech countdown.
The show leaned heavily on performances, including playwright Sharon Washington's New York, New York and Tony winner Alex Newell’s musical Shucked.
Here are a few of the most memorable moments from this year's 76th Tony Awards:
Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks wins for Best Revival of a Play
Parks took home the top award for Best Revival of a Play for Top Dog/Under Dog, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002. “This means a whole lot to a whole lot of people,” she declared, adding that, “the theater is the great cure. Thank you for acknowledging our contribution.” With this award, Parks become the first Black woman to win in the Best Revival of a Play category.
Alex Newell wins Best Featured Actor in a Musical
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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of soul food?
Is it a Sunday-dinner spread of perfectly seasoned fried chicken, collard greens and all the fixins? The overwhelming sense of satisfaction and comfort? Or my personal favorite — the nirvana that takes over when the mac and the cheese and the yams touch on my plate.
Hulu and Onyx Collective’s new docuseries “Searching for Soul Food” captures those same feelings of joy, community and gluttony while making thoughtful connections between our beloved cuisine, its origins in Black history, and resiliency. At the show’s heart is its host, owner of the Los Angeles eatery My 2 Cents chef Alisa Reynolds, who perfectly blends all these ingredients together. Like Stanley Tucci in CNN’s now-defunct “Searching for Italy,” Reynolds is a bright light that travels from city to city using her sense of humor, love of food and the ancestors as her guide.
What’s also interesting about “Searching for Soul Food” is that through Reynolds’ lens, soul food crosses borders — geographic and cultural. It’s not just about the African American experience but also about the spirit of the Black diaspora including South Africa, Peru and Jamaica. It’s also not even just Black, as she visits the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma, white folks in Appalachia, and Italians in Naples, Italy.
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For years, Orden David was persecuted in his native Antigua and Barbuda — a frequent complaint by many LGBTQ people who fear for their safety across the conservative and mostly Christian Caribbean, where anti-gay hostility is widespread.
David was bullied and ridiculed. One time, a man stepped out of a car, made a comment about how a gay man was walking on the street late at night, then hit him in the head. More recently, another stranger struck him in the face in broad daylight, knocking him out. That’s when he had enough.
Facing ostracism and risking his life as the public face of the LGBTQ movement, David took his government to court in 2022 to demand an end to his country’s anti-sodomy law.
“I realized that with our community, we’ve gone through a lot and there’s no justice for us,” Orden told The Associated Press. “We all have rights. And we all deserve the same treatment.”
Last year, a top Caribbean court ruled that the anti-sodomy provision of Antigua’s sexual offenses act was unconstitutional. LGBTQ-rights activists say David’s effort, with the help of local and regional advocacy groups, has set a precedent for a growing number of Caribbean islands. Since the ruling, St. Kitts & Nevis and Barbados, have struck down similar laws that often seek long prison sentences.
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The research used various methodologies (including correspondence studies, field experiments, statistical analyses, and review studies) and were conducted in a range of locations from North Carolina to Chicago to Seattle, looking at a range of ages and class divides. (The University of Chicago researchers worked on some of the studies; others informed their own work.) They all drew the same, insidious conclusion: Anti-Black discrimination practiced by Americans, white and otherwise, routinely robs Black people of opportunity, money, health, safety, and dignity.
Black life isn’t just unfairly strenuous; it’s also artificially short. The National Center for Health Statistics projects that the average life span for a Black American is 70.8 years. The projection for a white American? 76.4 years. That gap makes time all the more of the essence for Black people.
Yet anti-Black discrimination wastes their time — a lot of it.
Vox analyzed the data from the studies to provide an expansive picture of just how much. We learned that the average Black American could lose years, if not decades, of their life to discrimination.
The studies collected by Pope and his colleagues, as well as a breadth of other research, contain countless examples of this time-stealing phenomenon. Black Americans have to wait days longer for an appointment with a new doctor. They must be prepared to wait one day longer for a response for information about joining a new church and have to send out twice as many emails to get a response from a potential roommate. They spend more time applying for mortgages, and they see more Uber rides canceled — the list goes on.
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Voices & Soul
Black Kos Poetry Editor, Justice Putnam
I’ve been counting on my fingers how many hours in a day, and I’ve been counting on everything turning out alright. I’ve been counting on the sun always shining, and the moon pulling the tides and a blue sky against which to count on the clouds. I’ve been counting on the rivers flowing and I’ve been counting on fields of plenty and I’ve been counting on other good neighbors to help the needy and the old. I’ve been counting on our better angels and I’ve been counting on our good nature and I’ve been counting, counting counting.
But the days have counted long, the clock chimes slow and something just doesn’t add up. There is a calculus being deployed against the very concept of community, a strategy of geometry dividing our towns, our roads and our neighborhoods. There is a right angle racing to subtract our rights, our equality and even our children from our arms.
No one is going to save us. A clean sky is not going to appear unless we work to make it so. No mother should ever fear that simply letting her kids go to the store jeopardizes their lives. Our children, our hope, are only as safe as our ability to look out for each other, and look out for each other, we must. Our humanity is at stake, but it is our humanity that will prevail.
Count on it.
- JP
If a jar of jelly is $2.98
& a loaf of Hawaiian bread is $4
Then how much bail money will I need when I kill everyone in my house
for eating all the bread
and jelly in 5 minutes?
Black Momma Math
If Black Momma has a two 17-year-old Black Boys
What is the probability that they will come home in a body bag in the next 5 years?
If Son A leaves Ferguson at 3pm traveling at 60 miles per hour and Son B leaves Baltimore at 5pm traveling at 50 miles per hour
to drive to Florida,
what time and which morgue
will their bodies be delivered to
when their music and Black Boy Joy inspire a stand your ground tango?
Better yet,
what is the cost of a funeral times 2 if a police officer pulls them over?
If 6 out of 10 people have math anxiety,
Then how many Black women out of 10 have murdered baby anxiety?
Everyone says Black women can’t math
But we have been Black Momma mathing since the beginning of time
They have been long divisioning us since Africa become too valuable to keep as a whole
We’ve been reduced like fractions
Told we’re not equivalent
Compared to and found wanting against each other
even though we have the same common denominator
We get broken down like quadratic equations
Our squared roots have been cut in half
Our ancestral variables are left unknown
We’re always solving for the y
If distance equals rates times time
And the rate of Blacks killed by cops is 9x more than everyone else
Then how distant are we from legalized lynching?
Black women are educated
But being Black Momma provides a more specialized education
Black Momma Philosophy
If I let my son play outside with a toy gun and there are no news camera around to see it,
when the police shoot him
is it murder or self-defense?
We already know which harsh truths everyone ignores until someone not Black validates us
Is it possible that some people are just genetically predisposed to hate?
How free is our will if our fate is decided by our melanin
What is the meaning of Black lives when so many people don’t think we matter?
Black Momma Math
If a jar of jelly is $2.98
& a loaf of Hawaiian bread is $4
But I’m too scared to let my babies go to the grocery store
What is the probability that I am just delaying the inevitable?
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.