By james art She made it clear in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, again in her televised debate with Donald Trump a few weeks later, and in all her interviews since. Vice President Kamala Harris, if or when elected as the 47th President of the United States, will continue the center-right policies of her recent predecessors, especially her current boss, President Joe Biden.
This likely means that efforts to address income equality and poverty, to abandon policies that breed violence abroad, and to confront the gridlock of discrimination that affects Americans of color and especially black women will be sloppy at best. limited.
If Harris wins this election, being a black and South Asian woman in the most powerful office in the world won’t mean much to marginalized people everywhere, because she will exercise that power in the same racist, sexist, and Islamophobic ways that past presidents have.
“I am not the president of Black America. I am the president of the United States of America,” President Barack Obama said several times during his presidency when asked if he should do more for black Americans while in office. As a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris essentially does the same. And as was the case with the Obama presidency, this is not good news for black Americans or any other marginalized community.
Take the issue of housing.
Harris’ proposed $25,000 grant to help Americans buy homes for the first time is a blanket grant that, in a housing market historically skewed toward white Americans, will invariably discriminate against blacks and other people of color. Harris’ campaign promise doesn’t even distinguish between “first-time buyers” whose parents and siblings already own homes, and true “first-generation” buyers, who are more likely to be non-white and have no generational wealth.
It seems that Harris wants to appear committed to helping “all Americans,” even if that means her policies will mostly help (mostly white) Americans who already live middle-class lives. Any real chance of those in the working class and the working poor being able to access the three million homes promised by Harris is slim to none.
Harris’ promises about reproductive rights are equally non-specific and therefore less reassuring to those already facing discrimination and erasure.
She says that if elected president, she would “codify Roe v. Wade.” Every Democratic president since Jimmy Carter has made a similar promise and yet failed to keep it. Even if Congress were to pass such a law, the far right would challenge that law in court. Even if federal courts decide to strike down such a law, Supreme Court rulings that followed between 1973 and 2022 gave states the right to restrict abortions based on fetal viability, meaning most restrictions already in place in many states, will remain. And with half the states in the U.S. either outright banning abortion or severely restricting it, codifying Roe — if it ever comes to pass — would at best return the U.S. to the uncertainty surrounding reproductive rights that has existed since 1973.
Even if Harris miraculously keeps her promise, American women of color and women living in poverty will still have less access to contraceptives, to abortion, and to prenatal and neonatal care, because all Roe has done is takes such care “legal”. The law never made it available, and it certainly never made it so that all women had equal access to services in every state in the union.
Given that she is poised to become America’s first woman/woman of color/black president, Harris’ vague and sweeping promises about reproductive rights that would do little to help women, but especially marginalized women, are reprehensible. Sure, it’s good that Harris is talking about black girls and women like the late Amber Nicole Thurman who have been denied reproductive rights in states like Georgia, with deadly results. But her words mean nothing without a clear plan of action.
Where Harris has failed most, however, is in combating violence—predominantly directed at marginalized, removed, silenced, and criminalized people—in the US and overseas.
During a live and televised interview with billionaire Oprah Winfrey in September, Harris expanded on the revelation she made during her previous debate with Trump that she owns a gun. “If somebody breaks into my house, they’re going to be shot,” Harris said with a smile. “I probably shouldn’t have said that,” she added quickly. “My staff will deal with that later.”
The vice president seemed confident that her remark would ultimately be seen by pro-gun control Democrats as a necessary attempt to appeal to gun-owning, center-right voters who may still be dissuaded from voting for Trump. However, her casual statement about the use of lethal force revealed much more than her desire to secure the votes of “reasonable”, old-school right-wing supporters. It illuminated the ignorance with which Harris addressed the issue of the US as a violent nation and culture.
It’s hard to believe that Harris as president would be an advocate for “common sense” measures seeking “assault weapons bans, universal background checks, red flag laws” when she talks so casually about shooting people.
Her decision to treat gun violence as yet another issue for targeted politicking is troubling, especially when black people—including black women—face gun deaths at disproportionate rates, especially at the hands of police officers and white vigilantes. Despite Trump’s disgusting claims, Harris is a black woman. Many Americans suggest she would do more to protect them than other presidents. Her disdain for gun violence, however, shows that President Harris—regardless of her racial background—would offer no more security and safety to marginalized communities, including black women, than her predecessors.
The suggestion that as a part-black, part-South Asian president Harris would curb the American violence that maims and kills black, brown, and Asian bodies around the world also seems unfounded.
Saying repeatedly that he will “ensure that America always has the strongest, deadliest fighting force in the world,” Harris has made it clear that he has every intention of continuing the deadly, racist, imperialist policies of his Democratic and Republican predecessors , without reflection, recalibration or an ounce of remorse.
Just look at the carnage in Gaza she oversaw as vice president.
Although she has said several times that she and Biden are “working around the clock” for a cease-fire in Gaza, the truth is that Biden and Harris have not secured a cease-fire simply because they don’t want one. Harris as president will feel just as well that black, brown, and Asian lives don’t matter in her administration’s future foreign policy calculations as she did as vice president and US senator.
Anyone voting for Harris in this election – including yours truly – needs to be honest about why. Of course, there is excitement surrounding having a woman—a biracial, black, and South Asian woman—as American president for the first time in history. That excitement, combined with her pledge to “not turn back” on a Trump presidency and many promises to protect what’s left of American democracy, gives many Americans ample reason to support Harris-Waltz’s candidacy. Yet some seem to support Kamala Harris under the impression that, as a black and South Asian woman, she would appreciate the lives of people who look like her and, once elected, would support marginalized people much better than her predecessors.
This is a fallacy.
Just like Obama once did, Harris wants to be president of the United States of America. She has no intention of being president of “Black America” or the marginalized. She made that clear time and time again during her campaign and through her work as Joe Biden’s vice president.
There is a long list of reasons to vote for Harris in this election, but the assumption that her presidency will champion the rights and struggles of the marginalized simply because of her identity should not be on that list.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.