As VP Harris brings excitement to the presidential campaign, GOP’s ‘Laughing Kamala’ taunt highlights a long history of disrespect for black women.
[ad_1]
As Vice President Kamala Harris climbs to the top of the Democratic ticket, Republicans are rebuilding a campaign strategy that has been focused on running against President Joe Biden for months. Another emerging theme is that Harris laughs out loud at the wrong times—part of the broader argument that Harris is “weird.”
“I call him ‘Laughing Kamala,'” former President Donald Trump said at a rally in Michigan on July 24. “Have you ever seen him laugh? He’s crazy. You can tell a lot by laughing. … He has no money.”
As an American studies professor specializing in race and politics, I know that black women in the US have a history of struggle against violence and oppression. And often when we find joy, and show it, laughter follows. We are said to be too loud, too sensitive—well, “black women.”
History shows that this is a common dog whistle. Black women have been referred to as sensual Jezebels, flirtatious Sapphires, or slave-raising Mothers in popular culture. Those labels clearly don’t fit Harris, so Trump coined a new epithet: “laughing maniac.”
Invisibility has long plagued Black girls and women. As a result, their choices, from clothing to spirituality to activist groups, often focus on making themselves visible. They do this to highlight injustice and provide an idea of justice based on their experiences.
As I see it, black women deserve some of this to be happy. In this realm, Harris is leading the way. Former congresswoman and presidential candidate Kamala Harris dances with a group of kids at the Des Moines Steak Fry on Sept. 21, 2019.
Joy in the struggle
Most public opinion of Harris does not reflect Trump’s frame. The vice president’s speeches, smiles, laughs, and even—shocking—public dancing inspired a wave of fan posts and videos celebrating his strength and what journalist Jamie Cohen described as his “adorable awkwardness.”
For these observers, Harris brings together the idea of Black happiness – a national movement that began in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd. As NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior writer Lindsey Norward explains:
“Black happiness is an important part of the whole story of the Black people in their struggle for dignity and restoration … the unlimited ability to enjoy all the good things in life.”
Dark joy is embedded in all kinds of activities, from personal fashion to sports to voting. It offers a powerful antidote to images filled with the trauma of Black people.
Self-explanatory act
In a book I co-edited with Wake Forest University political science professor Julia Jordan-Zachery, we explored a related concept: Black Girl Magic. Our book described how Black girls and women maintain their humanity in the face of hate by promoting community, fighting invisibility, and creating spaces for freedom.
Sometimes this means drawing attention to their struggles. Another story in the book quotes the executive director of the African American Policy Forum, Kimberlé Crenshaw, explaining the hashtag #SayHerName, which was created to raise awareness of Black women who are victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence.
“Although Black women are often killed, raped and beaten by the police, what they experience is rarely reflected in the general public’s understanding of police brutality,” Crenshaw wrote. “However, the inclusion of Black women’s experiences in social media, media coverage, and policy demands regarding police and police brutality is essential to effectively combating the state’s racist violence against Black and other communities of color.”
On July 23, 2024, Harris issued a statement expressing grief over the “senseless death” of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old black woman who was shot and killed in her Illinois home by a sheriff’s deputy who responded to a report of a suspect. . The deputy was fired and charged with murder, based on body camera footage of another deputy showing him threatening Massey after reprimanding him and then shooting him.
“Sonya Massey deserved to be safe,” Harris wrote. “The disturbing images released yesterday confirm what we know from so many lives – we have a lot of work to do to ensure our justice system fully lives up to its name.” In other words, Harris said Massey’s name.
Writing his own story
Our book argued that in the age of Trump, whom Black women view almost universally as hostile to their interests, finding a balance between humanity and magic is more important than ever for Black girls and women.
As then-first lady Michelle Obama said in a March 2015 Black Girls Rock award speech, black girls often hear “voices telling you that you’re not right, that you have to look a certain way, do something. method; that when you speak, you speak too much; if you rise to lead, then you are strong.”
Around this time, author and social media influencer CaShawn Thompson began tweeting “#BlackGirlMagic” because, she said, “magic is something that people don’t always understand. Sometimes what we have achieved may seem out of thin air, because many times, the only people who support us are other black women.”
The hashtag gained popularity at the 2016 Black Entertainment Television Awards, where actor and activist Jesse Williams delivered a fiery speech about race in America. He concluded with a subtle nod:
“The responsibility of those who have been victimized is not to console the bystander. That’s not our job, okay – stop with all that … the thing is, just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.”
Williams was making a respectful reference to the #BlackGirlMagic movement, which addresses the fact that Black girls and women’s identities include resistance to narratives that exclude them and a willingness to define themselves.
Harris has faced this challenge many times over his career as a state attorney, attorney general, attorney general, and vice president. Now he has to reinvent himself for the position of president. And even with most campaign workers, Harris will have to do this himself.
As Nobel laureate Toni Morrison noted, the black woman has “nothing to fall back on: not masculinity, not whiteness, not womanhood, nothing.” And because of the deep destruction of his truth he may have invented it himself.”
Our book highlighted the emotional courage Black women use to accomplish so much while breaking immeasurable barriers. It is no exaggeration to call what they do magical.
Harris will need a lot of support for a successful campaign — from black women and many others. There will be serious issues to be discussed, from border security to foreign policy to economics. But Harris also has a real chance to match his humor with his energy and a much darker perspective from the GOP — without letting them decide when it’s OK for him to laugh.
Duchess Harris is a professor of American studies at Macalester College.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the first article.
[ad_2]
Source link
