Gen Z For Change<\/a>, who recently tweeted, \u201cPeople saying \u2018Harris needed to go further right\u2019 (whatever tf that means) don\u2019t understand the difference between left-wing populism and the brand of liberalism we saw from Harris. She ran on an uninspiring platform and lost ground with the working class.\u201d Let\u2019s be real\u2014\u201cuninspiring\u201d is code. It\u2019s a word Black women know all too well, used to subtly question our presence, our worth, our leadership. This isn\u2019t about whether her platform was progressive enough. It\u2019s about discomfort\u2014discomfort with a Black woman holding power in a space many believe she doesn\u2019t \u201cdeserve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe truth is, Kamala Harris is a monumental figure for Black women, especially for Gen Z Black women like myself. Her run for president\u2014a campaign shortened to an improbable 100 days\u2014was a HERstoric act that showed every Black girl in America that she, too, has the right to dream big. For Black women, Harris represents something powerful. When she became the Presidential nominee, we once again went to work and made HERstory. Forty-four thousand Black women joined the largest Zoom call ever recorded, raising over $1.5 million in just three hours, because we believed in her, believed in what she represented for us and for future generations. That\u2019s the level of inspiration she brings. That\u2019s the impact she has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet here we are, with some of these same progressives labeling her \u201cuninspiring,\u201d with Bernie Sanders openly criticizing the Democratic strategy in ways that target Harris more than any other figure. These attacks have little to do with Harris\u2019s policies and everything to do with the discomfort her presence brings. By blaming her for election results, they\u2019re not just attacking her; they\u2019re attacking the Black women who support her, who showed up for the Democratic Party when it mattered most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Black women, we know these criticisms aren\u2019t just disappointing\u2014they\u2019re a betrayal. We are the very foundation of the Democratic Party\u2019s success. Without Black women, there\u2019s no President Biden. There\u2019s no Senator Warnock, no Senator Ossoff. We showed up and gave everything, yet here we are, facing resentment and critiques designed to make us doubt our worth. To call Harris \u201cuninspiring\u201d is to erase the value of her leadership and the inspiration she brings to so many of us who understand what it means to navigate spaces that weren\u2019t made for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my sisters in the Divine Nine and for Black women everywhere, we know what\u2019s really at play. When people talk about Harris\u2019s \u201cbrand of liberalism\u201d as falling short, they\u2019re saying that Black women\u2014despite being the most loyal Democratic base\u2014aren\u2019t enough. They\u2019re saying that our voices, our presence, don\u2019t align with their vision of leadership. But the truth is, these so-called progressives need to confront their own biases, because these attacks on Kamala Harris are more than political critiques. They\u2019re a dismissal of everything Black women have done to make the Democratic Party and progressive movement what it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s truly \u201cuninspiring\u201d is that some so-called allies can\u2019t see past their own discomfort with a Black woman in leadership. Without Black women, there is no Democratic victory, no progressive future. And if progressives truly want to see change, they need to stop undermining the very women who make that change possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a painful irony here\u2014an irony that should be obvious to anyone watching. Black women, the backbone of the Democratic Party, who consistently turn out in record numbers and give over 90% of our votes to support progressive causes, are now under attack by some of those who claim to be our allies. The latest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[30,41,27],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-black-women","tag-democratic-party","tag-kamala-harris","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Kamala-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}