The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was competing only with Rihanna for forcing Black America to hold its collective breath with anticipation. Unlike Rihanna, it wasn’t as if Biden couldn’t put out a new album because he was busy shutting the makeup and beauty world down with a product line called “Robinette,” which is AAVE for the daughter of Robin. But now Biden has named his vice presidential pick and it is who we all thought it should be: California Sen. Kamala Harris.
According to NBC News, Biden finally made his decision, “which comes more than a year after Harris, who was also a 2020 Democratic candidate, clashed with Biden over racial issues during the first primary debate. If elected, she would be the nation’s first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president.”
Which basically means, if elected, Biden is killing three diversity birds with one Howard University grad. Harris, who is 55, but doesn’t look a day over 37 because Black, is expected to energize Biden’s ticket because no one is hyped about Biden, 77, but they will be about Harris.
The announcement caps off weeks of me saying “that if anyone is going to make the right decision, it’s Admiral Joe Biden!”
Managing Editor Genetta Adams: first, Biden isn’t an admiral...
Me: I know but it sounds more distinguished.
GA: And you’ve said for weeks that he was going to fuck this up. In fact, I think you have headlines that read, “Joe Biden is Going to Mess This Up”
Me: (throws papers in the air and runs out of room).
The announcement ends weeks of speculation—especially from me because I totally thought he was going to fuck this up—and pairs the hoe-hum Biden with a Black woman who will bring her sister friends (also know as the backbone of the Democratic Party) to the polls.
“You make a lot of important decisions as president. But the first one is who you select to be your Vice President. I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021,” Biden wrote in an email from his campaign to supporters.
From NBC News:
Harris, the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate, was first elected in 2016 after serving as California’s Attorney General and, before that, San Francisco District Attorney. A native of Oakland, California, and the child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, Harris has said she was inspired to attend law school after joining civil rights protests with her parents.
“She’s been a fighter and a principled leader and I know because I’ve seen her up close and I’ve seen her in the trenches,” Biden said of Harris at a virtual fundraiser in June.
As attorney general, Harris worked closely with Biden’s late son, Beau Biden, when he was Delaware’s attorney general, particularly in challenging big banks in the wake of the housing crisis. In her book, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” Harris says the pair “talked every day, sometimes multiple times a day.”
Before Biden’s announcement, a lot has been made about Harris’ “attack” on Biden during the first Democratic primary debate— for his record on busing and working with segregationists. First, it wasn’t a fucking attack, it was a serious inquiry by a Black woman who was fighting to be president. Secondly, grow up snowflakes and stop it with the “She hurt Joe’s feelings” bullshit. Harris was trying to win, and the last time I checked, all is fair in politics.
Apparently Biden and his wife, Jill, who called the debate moment a “punch to the gut” were able to get over themselves, especially considering that once Harris dropped out of the race, she threw her full support behind Biden.
“Both Biden and Harris allies have acknowledged that, in the months after she left the race, Harris has given her full support to the Biden campaign. She has often campaigned virtually for Biden, holding joint fundraisers with the candidate and roundtables around issues like the racial disparities in coronavirus cases and protecting the Affordable Care Act. In a June virtual fundraiser, she raised $3.5 million for the campaign,” NBC News reports.
That didn’t stop the naysayers (aka Biden allies) from trying to discredit Harris, calling her debate tactics “too ambitious,” which is basically a bullshit statement reserved for professional women who would never be used if a man did the same thing.
The funny thing is they are going to love Harris’ ambition when she dismantles Mike “Robot” Pence on Oct. 7 live on Pay-Per-View.
GA: First, it won’t be on PPV. Secondly, what is up with this nickname? Phony Kamala? That’s it? No alliteration? No rhyme? I’m not excited.
Harris is above said bullshit.
“There will be resistance to your ambition,” Harris said during a virtual conference with Black Girls Rock earlier this month. “There will be people who say to you, you are out of your lane. But don’t let that burden you.”
And now Harris is poised to take the second seat in the highest office in the land, assuming, of course, that the Biden ticket can join forces to beat Trump or as his friends call him, the Thanos of white supremacy.
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