Kamala Harris

Ava Vidal, The Independent

As soon as the announcement was made that Joe Biden would no longer be running for re-election to the White House, something magical happened: Black women across America stopped what they were doing and began organising.

On Sunday afternoon, a Zoom meeting for community leaders was hastily convened to discuss ways to ensure that vice-president Kamala Harris is selected as the Democrats’ nomination next month — and beats Donald Trump.

Originally, 1,000 Black women — city mayors and Senate hopefuls, community activists and civil rights leaders — were meant to join the call, to discuss fundraising and voter registration strategies. In what was intended as a determined show of grassroots support for a campaign to put a Black woman in the White House, that number quickly became 40,000.

They spent four hours voicing their unwavering support for Harris — sharing personal stories about working with her, surfacing her leadership qualities and underlining her unimpeachable qualifications for the role of US president. Before she rose to the vice-presidency under Biden, Harris had been the first African-American woman and south Asian American woman to serve as the attorney-general of California (though not without controversy — more on that later).

News that Biden had endorsed her as his successor sparked an immediate surge in Democrat fundraising, the kind of which had so far been lacking from the election. During the Zoom call, more than a million dollars was raised in donations to what is now the “Harris for president” campaign. Almost $50m (£38.7m) rolled in over the hours that followed. (By comparison, in the 24 hours after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records, his presidential campaign raised $52.8m from small-time donors in a fundraising blitz.)

It’s a sign of support for Harris — but also a determination that the alternative cannot be allowed to happen. After Trump and the racist, misogynistic views he espouses made it all the way to the White House, Black women decided to mobilise. The slogan “Listen to Black women” was coined. Sunday’s Zoom was “Listen to Black women” brought to life.

If only it had happened half a decade ago. As Black women have long pointed out, Trump’s election win in 2016 was enabled by millions of white women voting not for Hillary Clinton, but for a “pussy-grabbing” man whose policy positions were a clear threat to women’s rights.

Black women occupy a unique space within American society. At the intersection of both race and gender, they have a uniquely rounded worldview, which offers them a perspective that is unmatched by anyone else.

One of the phrases Harris likes to use, but which has puzzled many as to its meaning — “What can be, unburdened by what has been” — has taken on a new clarity after her sudden elevation to the Democratic nomination. Her appeal is to a core of Black and Hispanic voters, and women in particular, who can see in Harris how America, a country stained by its long history of racism and slavery, is changing.

So, too, is the US electorate itself. Since the 2020 election, half of the growth of the voting-age population has been within the Hispanic-American community. Black women still largely identify with the Democratic Party, but increasingly less devotedly. Were Harris to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, that base would become immovable.

She has younger generations on her side. Like Barack Obama before her, she has enough swag to win over those with huge, influential fanbases: Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and John Legend have already taken to social media to let their millions of followers know they are right behind her. British singer Charli XCX, despite not being able to vote in the US election, has also already heavily endorsed her, declaring on social media that “Kamala is brat” — which has only added to Harris’s cred and seemingly created another Harris internet meme.

A Harris nomination will not be without its controversies for the Black community. During her tenure as prosecutor in California, she was heavily criticised for the mass incarcerations she oversaw, which had a huge impact on the Black community in particular. She convicted almost 2,000 for cannabis violations, sending many to prison — but when asked if she ever smoked herself, she gives her trademark laughs. A mosaic has been made of Harris using the faces of all the Black men she locked up, some of whom were kept well past their release dates.

It is not yet clear who Harris will choose as her running mate. I’ve seen some commentators suggest that she would do well to choose Bernie Sanders. He has a ready fan base and left-wing credentials that Harris simply doesn’t have. But, like Biden, he is of advancing years which may count against him, even though he’s distinctly more lucid. Others believe that she needs to choose someone more moderate, perhaps someone with a military background who would play well in the Midwest and perhaps even win over the Bible belt.

One this is for sure. If she picks the right running mate, she’ll be laughing all the way to the White House.