If Kamala Harris Was A White Man or Woman, The Narrative About The Campaign Collapse Would Be About Record Not Race

By Scotty T Reid – If Kamala Harris was a white man and not just married to one, and an unemotional person not caught up in colorism and genderism identity politics, objectively looked at what she did as a San Francisco prosecutor and California’s “Top Cop” Attorney General and looked at the agencies she aligned herself with, the things she fought for or fought against and the times she stood silent in efforts to produce justice via legislative means, she would rightly be accused of practicing racism and modern-day slavery instead of being laughably offered up as a victim of racism and/or sexism in politics.

The attempt to paint Harris as a victim is due largely in part to bias connected to the racial and biological characteristics of a person that is rooted in identity politics and not logic or evidence-based analysis. There are those that have no problem making charges of racism and/or sexism without a shred of evidence but those people are not engaging in analysis that requires evidence, it is so because they say it is so and her skin color and what’s between her legs is all the “evidence” they need.

Nevermind that Harris’s biggest critics were Black criminal justice reform advocates and prison slavery abolitionists who have been writing, talking and sharing information about her atrocious record before she even launched a POTUS bid. Nevermind her actual record was counter to the “progressive prosecutor” narrative her campaign tried to craft and those of us who did our best to inform people in the same way we informed people about Hillary Clinton’s real record but accused of being self-hating Black people, waiting to see what white voters were going to do or working for Putin’s Russia to spread the truth about her record and alliances in the State of California. Some people, a lot of people if I am being honest, are not interested in facts or doing research or critically thinking about the details of individual cases, it is much easier to make narrow assumptions about one of the whitest well off base of supporters of all the “top tier” candidates with the exception of Warren. To singularly promote a narrative centered on Harris’s individual biological characteristics and to suggest that MSM media singularly targeted Harris is intellectually lazy and dishonest.

Yes, a lot of people are very confused about racism and how proxy racism works to maintain a wicked system and they don’t really know much about Harris’s crimes against humanity because they don’t read, they just watch MSM cable shows that appeal to their biases and even if they come across the information by chance, they ignore that information because symbolism is what matters most to them and not actually putting people in positions of power who are authentically trying to dismantle systems so that we can all live in a more just and equitable society. It is no different than criticism poor whites get for engaging in identity politics and voting against their own class interests, white power symbolism is more important just as it is for their Black counterparts.

A black oppressor is no different than a white oppressor in their acts of oppression. It doesn’t matter to me if a Black person is wearing the black boot on my neck or a white person is wearing the black boot on my neck, my focus is on the black boot on my neck and removing it. Fred Hampton, the Black Panther leader of the Illinois chapter clearly understood the concept of justice and the dangers of identity politics before the term was coined, was assassinated this day in 1969 because of his cross-cultural appeal among the youth. The Panthers were Black socialists building an international class-based multi-racial coalition and were keen to educate those who would listen to not allow racism to be used by the elites and their non-white proxies to keep all poor and working-class people down and boots on all our necks.

Perhaps if Fred Hampton and Malcolm X who recognized that the real fight wasn’t so much black vs white but the oppressed vs. the oppressor had not been murdered/assassinated, the generations that followed would not be in such a state of confusion in how the oppressive system refines and maintains itself and we would not have some of us giving these intellectually lazy and illogical assessments about why Kamala Harris was not able to capture the hearts and minds of the masses of poor and working-class people in this current political cycle.

This is why it is important to do more than keep these revolutionary icons’ memory alive but more importantly, we need to pass down their class-based lessons and analysis to our sons, daughters, and grandchildren if we truly want to implement a global system of justice instead of just whining and complaining about superficial symbols based on identity politics being rejected by the youth and logically thinking voters.

Indeed, I have little doubt that if Kamala Harris was a white male neoliberal with her record, it would be more than just grassroots criminal justice reform activists, prison slavery abolitionists and progressives who are glad that Harris’s POTUS folly has come to an end.