How Kamala Harris was treated resonates with every Black woman
This is about more than politics. It’s about racism and misogyny.
Senator Kamala Harris dropped out of the primaries. As a Kamala supporter, I’m disappointed. As a Black woman, I’m devastated. Kamala is educated and successful. She is more than qualified to lead this country. Yet she drew less support than every white person running. This reverberates further than just the primaries. It settles into the hearts of every Black woman who has faced the same fate of being the most qualified and losing to a white person.
Black women can tell you story after story of being passed over even though we know we’re the best candidate for the job. Many of us have walked out of interviews knowing in our gut that those interviewers have no interest in hiring a Black woman. They don’t come right out and say it, but their cool tone and disinterested demeanor tell us all we need to know. We’ve sat in meetings where no one looks like us and silently fumed as we’re talked over, corrected and marginalized all because the white people assume we’re incapable of matching — let alone exceeding — their own intellect.
But they’re wrong. Black women continue to excel at earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Unfortunately, Black women also must constantly prove we deserve a seat at the table. We have to fight to be heard. We have to work twice as hard to earn half as much. We’re constantly objectified and infantilized.
We’re rarely considered the intellectual equals of white people.
Black women endure white people who believe that, no matter what we’ve achieved in our lives, we didn’t actually earn it. Someone must have given it to us. White people believe they deserve whatever we have and more. And we deserve nothing.
So why am I devastated? If Kamala faced the brutal onslaught of misogyny, racism and marginalization in such a public forum and few people defended her, what does that mean for the rest of us? Black women work hard. We’ve always worked hard to take care of our families and ourselves. So believe me when I say this:
White people will never outwork Black women.
Do you know what many of us of went through to earn those advanced degrees? We took classes while working full time or taking care of children. In many cases, we juggled both. So when white people brag about working an 80-hour week, think about the countless Black women who manage to work at least that much, keep their children fed and clothed, all while going to school.
Let me also say this loud and clear: Pete Buttigieg is wrong when he says minority children don’t have role models to show them the importance of education. He assumes we don’t have family who have gone to college. Many of us do. We also have mothers like mine, who didn’t go to college. Yet my mother celebrated my every success. She read to me when I was small and told me I could be anything I wanted. But I needed to go college. So I don’t know who Mayor Pete’s talking to, but it’s not black people.
White people think black people don’t care about education, our communities or our children. If that were true, black women wouldn’t be out here practically killing ourselves to create a better life for us and the people we love. So it’s disappointing when someone as powerful as Kamala can’t even get a fair shake with the entire world watching. Too many white people stayed silent as they watched her ridiculed, attacked and dismissed.
It doesn’t matter if you like Kamala Harris. What she endured is what Black women regularly endure at the hands of white people. We work in white spaces where every day we’re treated like the help. We watch as our ideas are stolen, and no one believes us when we speak up. We look around the room at the sea of white faces sitting silent as we are insulted and shamed.
So you bet I’m devastated. Once again, this country has shown Black Women exactly how it feels about us. As Malcolm X said:
“The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
Follow me on Twitter: @LeciaMichelle11
