Hopes that Harris will bring about positive change to Black lives or make a real effort to end Palestinian suffering are fantasy
A lot is being said about US Vice President Kamala Harris and her chances of becoming the next president. Many are optimistic that she can bring about positive change with regard to gender empowerment, racial equality, and a rational foreign policy, while prominent commentators such as Mehdi Hasan believe she could be “marginally better than Joe Biden” in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Famed American election forecaster and professor Allan Lichtman favors Harris to win this November. She became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after President Joe Biden announced that he would not stand for reelection and later endorsed her.
Some political commentators in the US and other parts of the world are portraying the 59-year-old Harris as a new symbol of gender and racial equality in the global political landscape. As a Black Asian woman, they argue that she can overcome racism and break through the hardest ceiling in American politics.
Is this really so? Or is the entire PR exercise to depict her as a new messiah part of an American strategy to manufacture consent and weave a narrative to hoodwink the global community? It has happened before. It can happen again.
From 2009 to 2017, Barack Obama served as the 44th US president for two four-year terms. His victory as the first African American president in the country’s history was also glamorized and romanticized as a radical shift in a similar manner as is being done now with Harris – as though a new dawn of hope and peace has arrived.
Did Obama deliver and live up to the hype created around his persona? Did his presidency make the world a better place? Did he change the harsh reality for ordinary African Americans? And would a Harris victory see any improvement in the lives of Black people in America?
Data regarding poverty in the US suggests that black and Hispanic people continue to live on the margins. Nearly 17% of them live below the poverty line. People of color continue to be the prime target of hate crimes and racially motivated violent incidents.
Recall the immortal lines of Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He must be turning in his grave today because, six decades after his historic speech, America remains a nation where Black people are still “judged by the color of their skin” and not “by the content of their character.”
Quite in tune with King’s famous line, “We must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force,” George Floyd, a hapless 46-year-old African American man, did not act violently while facing unimaginable brutality at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25, 2021. According to an independent investigation of CCTV footage of the horrific incident, the victim uttered “I can’t breathe” at least 16 times after he was grabbed and held face down on the ground by police officer Derek Chauvin and his colleagues.
Floyd was arrested after being accused of buying cigarettes with an alleged counterfeit bill worth $20. An employee of a local convenience store that called the police said the man was “awfully drunk” and “not in control of himself.” For more than eight minutes, Chauvin applied extreme pressure on Floyd’s torso, legs, and neck. This proved fatal. Floyd was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Perhaps it is easy for some to dismiss Floyd’s death as an exception, not the norm, while some would note that this incident happened when Republican President Donald Trump was at the helm. The rot, however, is complete. Regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power, the underlying issues related to racism in the US remain systemic. Black people will continue to face the heat. Some might also argue that the US has made great strides in racial and gender equality since then. Facts and data, however, speak to the contrary.
According to a report by the Pew Research Center, Black Americans see “little improvement in their lives despite increased national attention to racial issues.” The study found that nearly 18 months after George Floyd’s death in May 2020, “nearly two-thirds (64%) of all Black adults, including those who are multiracial or Hispanic,” believed the nationwide reckoning instigated by the Floyd incident failed to enhance the focus on issues of racial inequality as desired or expected. Only around 13% of respondents, as per the October 2021 survey, expected that “Black people will achieve equality in the United States.”
Racial discrimination remains a “top issue” for an overwhelming 82% of African Americans, while hate crimes based on race, religion, color, and sexual orientation continue unabated.
In May 2022, an 18-year-old white American man shot 13 individuals, 11 of whom were Black, at the ‘Tops Friendly Market’ in Buffalo, New York. Police officials said the attack was livestreamed on social media and was removed minutes after it was posted. Racially motivated attacks and hate crimes against African Americans are not uncommon in the US.
In August 2023, in yet another racially motivated attack, a gun-wielding man targeted Black people at a Dollar General Store in Jacksonville, Florida. At least three African Americans were killed in the shooting incident.
Moving on, let us not fool ourselves by believing the propaganda and falsehoods peddled by American commentators. Indeed, Kamala Harris did not attend the recent address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint meeting of the US Congress. She was not, however, boycotting Netanyahu; she was busy with her election campaign. Later, she met with the prime minister and was elated over the “frank and constructive meeting with Netanyahu."
She told Netanyahu that “I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah.” In a press briefing after meeting with the Israeli leader, Harris said: “From when I was a young girl collecting funds to plant trees for Israel to my time with the US Senate and now the White House, I have had an unwavering commitment to the existence of Israel, to its security and to the people of Israel.”
She went on to speak about the colossal humanitarian crisis in Gaza, peace talks, the right to self-determination of Palestinians, and the need for a two-state solution. But it all sounded like a passing reference and a craftily woven balancing act.
Against this backdrop, pinning hopes on Harris to bring about positive change in the lives of African or Asian Americans or to make serious and sincere efforts to end the suffering of tens of thousands of Palestinians is a pipe dream. American symbolism related to racial and gender equality is as deceptive as its ‘morals-based’ foreign policy.
American symbolic gestures lack sincerity of purpose. Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is Jamaican, and they identify as Black. Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan hailed from the southern Indian city of Chennai, formerly Madras. Using ethnic identity as an advantage and portraying it as success of the disempowered and marginalized Black community is one thing; changing things on the ground is quite another. Harris’ attempts to take advantage of her minority status and depict herself as a messiah for the disadvantaged is mere lip service because she has failed to be an ambassador of the Palestinian women and children.