Short Form Analysis
In the late afternoon of July 21st, Joe Biden announced his drop out of the 2024 presidential race, subsequently endorsing Kamala Harris as the new democratic nominee. A flurry of activity has risen online, with various prominent Black celebrities such as Spike Lee and Janelle Monae voicing their support for Harris, and even the Howard University Student Association releasing a statement of solidarity.
Already the sentiment that Kamala Harris is swooping in to save democracy all while being a girl-boss is making the rounds online, evidenced by hashtags like #I’mWithHer and nicknames such as “Mamala.” But while Howard University and other members of the Black community share their excitement over the prospect of the first Black female president, they fail to realize that Kamala is not our savior, in fact, she is quite the opposite.
Kamala has a long history of oppressive policies that largely target low-income Black people, especially in her career as a District Attorney in San Francisco where her prosecutions jailed Black and Latino communities. Her boosting of incarceration doesn’t stop there, she has expressed resistance against gender-affirming care for trans incarcerated people and has supported the overfunding of prisons in exchange for defunding schools. Abroad she has held the same attitude, as seen in her support of Israel and America’s efforts in stripping Africa.
However, the media machine has been hard at work minimizing and erasing her established history of oppressing Black people in America and abroad. The countless memes from her term – among them her silk press and “We Did It Joe” video – play two equally harmful roles: turning her into a laughing stock, and providing cover for her crimes against the colonized world (Black people, Middle Easterns, and Latinos). With this reality, it cannot be more clear that her role as a “more diverse” president will not save us, because no president can.
The role of the president is to extend United States control across the world while maintaining class disparities at home, all done to keep the failing tent of U.S. colonialism standing. When we view the president through this lens, it becomes clear that no matter how diverse a president is, they must fulfill their role in sustaining the oppression of millions across the globe. No individual identity can change that, Kamala Harris’s included. When we accept this, we understand clearly the duty we are faced with; organize, organize, organize. As stolen Africans in this country, Kamala Harris cannot be our savior, because no president or individual can, only the people can.