Please Mr. White Man, Tell Me I’m Black Enough
Indian Herb Store, Harlem, New York, 1952. Gordon Parks
Leave it to white men to establish "criteria" for the world to determine who's Black and who's not; or who's Black enough and who's not. In July, Trump was interviewed at the National Association of Black Journalists Annual Convention. When asked about Kamala Harris in the context of race and his ongoing racist remarks, he stated, "I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black." Trump had claimed that Harris was "Indian all the way" in the past and out of convenience, put on some "magic Black hat" when it became advantageous for her.
Before the interview, Trump and his base had taken the position that Kamala wasn't smart enough to run for president. Trump has challenged her IQ and has called her "dumb as a rock" on his social media platform, True Social. It's customary to have choice words in today's social climate for competing politicians, however, language that comes to call into question one's ability, which we can agree is only in question today due to Harris' ethnicity. For every threatened mediocre white man, there is a knee-jerk reaction to question the criteria of the person who they're threatened by. Policies, ideology, and "good old-fashioned American pride" are void when it comes to overqualified Black candidates outperforming their mediocre white opponents, thus, calling into baseless scrutiny into their intellectual ability, school record, and citizenship take priority.
Mediocre White Men "Call Out" Mediocrity in Presidential DEI Hire
White men can't seem to tame themselves when it comes to colonizing. Modern-day colonization goes further than just land and institutions, it delves further into qualification and worthiness. Essentially, who is fit to do what, and who looks the part to do it. We've seen this same truth across party lines. During the 2020, election, Biden made the statement that Black voters who were still contemplating between him and Trump weren't Black.
Only a mediocre white man could possibly suggest that not only Harris is not Black enough, but also mediocre. Imagine the audacity of implying such a thing with a background that overqualifies her more than any candidate that has presented themselves in this election. And of course, only a mediocre white man could possibly say in public that Trump’s statement about Kamala Harris being Black is “totally reasonable,” just as JD Vance did. This only plays to the narrative that continues to follow her as she becomes more popular and likely to win her party and the election itself. That theme is built on the foundation of Harris being a DEI hire.
Whether we want to defend what “Black jobs” look like, the more we have to justify that a Black person is capable of doing whatever job they wish, there will always be room for the DEI narrative. That narrative attempts to say what is and isn’t Black. It is social colonization that incorporates social perception and gives credence to those who have created the narrative itself.
Republicans have argued that Kamala Harris is not only a DEI candidate, but the “bottom of the barrel” intellectually speaking. And as we consider our previous presidential candidates, recent Supreme Court picks, and elected officials on the state level post a MAGA-driven GOP, the argument that Kamala is a weak choice is completely brainless. When we consider that in the middle of a pandemic, during a live briefing with the CDC, a sitting president seriously suggested that Americans inject themselves with bleach, the idea that anyone with as colorful of background as Kamala Harris couldn’t be anyone’s “bottom of the barrel.”
What’s more, the election won’t focus on issues that impact Americans. It will be a bloodbath of spilled hatred because we have a qualified Black woman running for president. And I am, for one, not excited for another “we shall overcome” or “when they go low, we go high,” while millions of Black voters watch the social microaggressions and bigotry. There’s certainly dissonance; this election can easily be divided into Black Vs. white where tribalism is at the core. And this alone has the impact to not only make or break an election but to spark a reaction that no one is ready for.