What did the Vice-Presidential Debate Tell Us? Activism is working.
I have not heard it covered yet. Maybe somebody can point to a journalist who covered it. As I watched CNN’s post-debate coverage, the largely white panel did not bring it up. African-American panelist, Van Jones, did some virtue signaling by referencing the “first-time” status of Senator Kamala Harris. African-American analyst, Abby Phillip, who brings some needed youth and brilliance to CNN, did not bring it up.
What I am referencing is the one question that had Senator Harris lift her gaze off any script or pre-recorded talking point. She began to talk forcefully and confidently about race. Think about that. No. I mean . . . really think about that.
In some of the pre-debate coverage, many of the panelists talked about Senator Harris needing to “thread the eye of the needle.” In other words, because she was a confident African-American/Asian woman, she would need to be careful about her tone and style rather than any substance she would put forward. Panelists admitted that because patriarchy is real and active, Republican leadership and their surrogates would take any opportunity (or non-opportunity — let’s face it, they would have done so if she would have conceded every Pence point) to label Senator Harris an “insufferable, lying bitch (taken from an actual surrogate tweet).” What the panelists went back and forth about was whether Senator Harris would say something or do something that would contribute to the inevitable patriarchal bullshit.
That is what made Senator Harris’s strong and powerful statements about racial injustice in this country even more poignant. She spoke directly to the family about their pain. She talked about the need for changed policy and procedure. She moved from the question about Breonna Taylor and pointed a line directly to George Floyd and said, “an American man was tortured and killed under the knee of an armed, uniformed police officer.” Then she immediately turned to protest! She even mentioned that she was part of those protests. On a national stage, a candidate for vice-president spoke about police torturing and killing an African-American man.
What happened next was even more stark. Vice-President Pence did not try to re-frame Black pain. He conceded it. He sympathized with it. Though what was also missing was the fact that President Trump did not speak to family members like Senator Harris had, Vice-President Pence even conceded peaceful protest to talk about riots. After all of that observation of racism, where he painted himself into a corner, Vice-President Pence then used a non-sequitur to say there is no systemic racism in our country. Wait a minute. You just talked about the tremendous tragedy of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
This is what activism has done in our country. Senator Kamala Harris, an African-American woman herself, was allowed to paint the frames for the debate. Without the work of activism, right-leaning politicians have regularly suggested that African-American leaders are racist for reminding us of African-American pain. Think about what happened when President Obama rightly observed the arresting of an African-American man for trying to get into his own house!
In this debate, Vice-President Mike Pence conceded that pain. He did so because activism has opened up a space, a path that made the way for Senator Harris. And she courageously stepped into it. African-American pain was observed in such a way that racism in our country was undeniable. Vice-President Pence sounded hollow and partisan trying to say that systemic racism is not present in our country.
Transformation needs to be celebrated. Otherwise, we do not have the necessary energy and spiritual muscle to get back out into the street again. When we train our bodies, we recognize that muscles necessarily break down to rebuild to handle further stress. That does not happen though without celebration of milestones along the way and rest. I think some of us are getting exhausted with the idea that things are not changing. What the vice-presidential debate related in graphic ways is that our nation’s narrative has been changed by activism.
Think about the prolific ways professional athletes have walked into the open space created by activists and become activists themselves. NFL and NBA owners now concede open displays of antiracism.
Even creation seems to be joining in! Ibram Kendi noticed that the fly appeared on Vice-President Pence’s head when he began denying racism in our country. Flies and shit. You make the correlation.
No, the NFL still cannot find its way to employ Colin Kaepernick or Eric Reid. The arc of justice, seemingly, does not bend for them. But as Dr. Kendi has written, “Being antiracist is not a destination but a journey — one that takes deliberate, consistent work. It’s work to transform oneself and society.”
For one moment on that journey last night, Senator Harris confidently and courageously walked into a space created by the deliberate, consistent work of activists. Celebrate. Observe. Discern. Act.