NBC News – Dr. Anthea Butler

Kamala Harris is already facing sexist and racist attacks — and they’ll only get worse

ProfB — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 08:07:34 +0000

Immediately after the announcement Tuesday that Sen. Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s selection for the vice president’s slot on the Democratic presidential ticket, the attacks and criticisms began flying across the web from conservatives and liberals alike. She’s “extraordinarily nasty.” She’s “a cop.” She’s too conservative — or she’s too liberal. She changes her mind constantly.

Funny how a competent, successful woman accomplishing something heretofore unprecedented seems to do that to people. If a white man had a backstory like Harris’, conservatives would openly consider him a formidable opponent and worthy of at least some respect.

Harris’ story and rise to become the presumptive Democratic nominee for vice president — and the first Asian American and the first Black woman on any ticket — should be a story about the first-generation child of immigrants rising to the top of the political world through intellect, strategy and wit. Instead, the quest to tear apart her identity, her accomplishments and every single one of her missteps will continue on both sides of the aisle and in the media until Election Day in November.

For instance, being of Jamaican and Indian descent has exacerbated criticism of Harris’ record as district attorney of San Francisco and California state attorney general: She is not judged strictly on her accomplishments or failures in those roles, but on what she did or did not do on criminal justice reform as a Black woman in those roles — even though it’s just as likely that, had she been seen at the time as acting on her identity in those roles, she never would have been elected to them at all.

We don’t often discuss how women like Harris face these kind of double-edged swords, or what compromises and struggles these dilemmas require of professional women in order to achieve success in their fields.

Harris, a California Democrat, is furthermore now being singled out by conservatives because she is a child of immigrants from Jamaica and Indian: In the toxic racial environment of America, a past which was once lauded as American exceptionalism is now a reason to revive birtherism — the same ahistoric, anti-constitutional thinking once intended to deny President Barak Obama his elected office because of his father’s immigrant status.

A particularly despicable article in Newsweek inferred — without legal justification, in defiance of commonly understood constitutional law — that, as a result of her parents’ immigrant backgrounds, Harris might well not qualify to be vice president. While Newsweek has issued an “apology” of sorts for the piece, while denying it qualified as birtherism, it will clearly be the start of more to come, especially given the imprimatur of Newsweek.

(Of course, Democrats and lefties have not been immune from debates intended to deny Harris’ identity, with Desi Twitter both lauding and criticizing her, and Black people arguing over whether she is Black enough.)

Then there are the criticisms of Harris — as with Hillary Clinton before her — as being too apt to change her mind. As Peiter Beinart aptly wrote in The Atlantic, it is a false dichotomy to ask if Harris’ stance has changed because of political calculations or personal feelings. People can change, and we should want them to if they are wrong.

But the troubling aspect of this criticism when applied to Harris is that it is often meant to convey to voters that they can’t trust her because she flip-flops. But women — and especially women of color — are often deemed untrustworthy compared to men, and Black women are supposedly even more untrustworthy than white women. Repeating this canard about Harris because she chose to learn from criticism of her political positions plays into our implicit sexist and racist biases — and liberals especially ought to know better.

After all, the Twitter hashtag #TrustBlackWomen got started in part because of Black women’s political savvy during the 2017 Alabama Senate race between Roy Moore and Doug Jones and our understanding of which candidates are worthy of our votes. (Black women also overwhelmingly voted against Trump in 2016.)

If Harris were a man, there would assuredly be some of this scrutiny, but there would be less of it and it would come without much of the context and subtext that comes from her being a woman of color.

America, however, is one of the last remaining countries in the world to not have had a woman at its helm: Israel, India, the United Kingdom and Germany, among others have had women in the highest position in government. America, meanwhile, is still clearly roiling from having had exactly one African American president, having thereafter, with the overwhelming support of white people, elected a president who made his love for Confederate paraphernalia and its fans well known rather than a well-qualified white woman.

So, despite the common theme among professional pundits that Harris was a “safe” choice, the truth is that, in a country that has widely embraced open racism and sexism, she was truly not. She achieved her presumptive nomination because of her skills and intellect — as well as her publicly demonstrated ability to dissect through the lies of this administration. Her elevation at this moment serves as bridge between the old politics of the Democratic Party as represented by men like Biden and the newer, progressive politics of the party represented by women like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and others. (And, as a woman on the cusp of Gen X, Harris quite literally is a bridge between the Baby Boomer and millennial wings of the party.)

Kamala Harris is a woman of color, stepping up to serve a nation that has seemingly forgotten that it was built not only on a revolution against a tyrannical power, but on the tyranny of slavery and because of immigration. E Pluribus Unum — out of many, one — does not apply to just men, and it never has. Women are an important part of the many here in America, and it is time that we have a woman near the top (if not quite yet at the top) of the executive branch.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/kamala-harris-already-facing-sexist-racist-attacks-it-ll-only-ncna1236620

Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris shattered the glass ceiling for all women. It’s about time.

ProfB — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 07:57:44 +0000

Finally: It is not a dream, and Kamala Harris is the vice president-elect of the United States.

For American women, a glass ceiling — first tapped by Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 — has finally broken. For both Black and South Asian women in the United States, we felt it shatter on our first real hit; she is our sister. We see in her the promise that our mothers held out for us, one our grandmothers could not even imagine. For our daughters and granddaughters, we see a brighter future.

Most important, we see the beginnings of change at the highest level of governmental office in America — one that is long overdue.

Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate was not just about a symbolic choice to win votes; it was a recognition that, in America, there are millions of competent women who are reasoned and reasonable, intellectual and emotive, engaging and analytical.

Black women like Harris have been the backbone of the modern Democratic Party.

Kamala Harris represents what America should have seen long ago in women, had the media and politicians not lost their way by coddling those far too eager to put women back in the kitchen and in the nursery. Our cultural imaginations can now be turned to all the women who every day work hard, succeed and are capable of running America.

Black women like Harris have been the backbone of the modern Democratic Party, from Fannie Lou Hamer’s standing up for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 convention to Shirley Chisholm’s run for the Democratic nomination in 1972 to Stacey Abrams’ run for governor of Georgia and her creation of Fair Fight to protect voting rights. With Vice President Harris, their trailblazing political activism opens up a whole new range of opportunities for women organizing and being active through politics.

Her role also makes a very clear statement to the Democratic Party that its future is about Black women and other women of color who can draw voters into the fold, willing to fight and make changes that are important both for their communities and for America as a whole.

Harris’ story will also resonate with the millions of recent immigrants who came to America to find jobs and education and to raise their children to be successful. Her successes are also the successes of immigrants and all people of color in America who have had to fight all kinds of racist and sexist odds to rise to the top of their professions and politics.

And after the last four years of performative femininity — often characterized by straight-ironed hair, professional makeup, pastels, bell sleeves and pussy bows — Vice President Harris will be a welcome breath of fresh air to many women for whom that vision of womanhood is anachronistic. Instead of stilettos, Chuck Taylors will be the rage; instead of tight sheath dresses, we can take a few deep breaths — as well as a hearty welcoming laugh — in a professional blazer.

Kamala Harris is a competent holder of power, exhibiting both strength and compassion.

It might seem shallow to talk about the change in sartorial choices with a changing presidential administration, but the way women in power dress is an important cue about how they view their own accessibility and the role of women in public life. Harris represents women who work hard, play hard, enjoy life and are committed to both career and family — and she will be accessible because she is casually professional and beautiful, not contrived.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/vice-president-elect-kamala-harris-shattered-glass-ceiling-all-women-ncna1246493

Trump’s Phoenix megachurch rally proves how much faith and masks are now political

ProfB — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 06:15:14 +0000

Because wearing masks helps to stem the spread of the coronavirus primarily by preventing infected people who aren’t experiencing symptoms from infecting others, people around the world now regularly wear them to protect others in their communities. But in America, not wearing a mask has become a political statement — and it’s a statement increasingly being made by avowedly devout Christians.

For example, attendees at the Students for Trump rally at the Dream City Church in Phoenix on Tuesday mostly eschewed wearing masks and did not socially distance, instead relying on pastors who had claimed they’d installed a system in the church that killed 99.9 percent of COVID-19 in the air. (The pastors later took down a video of the claims, which were debunked by experts who noted that the virus is primarily spread by respiratory droplets by people within 6 feet of each other.)

Whether what follows — in a county currently in the middle of a spike in community transmission, with 1,231 new cases reported Tuesday alone — is another spike in cases won’t likely be clear for two weeks. But, if it is, it won’t be the first time that a church has been the locus of transmission when they had the knowledge not to be.

Since the pandemic-related stay-at-home orders began in March, we’ve had pastors arrested for holding church services in violation of them, numerous outbreaks of COVID-19 traced to churches, and even a certain man in a white house who wanted Easter Sunday to be not just the celebration of Jesus coming out of the tomb, but the edict for going back to church. From singing in churches to attending funerals, churches have become serious vectors for the spread of the virus — and yet some pastors seem to have missed the memo.

In Oregon, the Lighthouse Pentecostal church in Island City is the site of a major outbreak of the coronavirus. The church held services in April and May even though the state of Oregon put size restrictions on gatherings; weddings and graduation events were also held at the church during that time. Last weekend, 66 percent of 356 people at the church who were tested ended up positive for the virus. While the church had videos of various events without social distancing up on its website, those have now been taken down, and the leadership has gone silent.

Across the country in West Virginia, Graystone Baptist Church has also contributed 41 cases to a broader coronavirus outbreak in the area. The pastor encouraged but hadn’t required parishioners to wear marks, and stopped the handshaking part of the service but didn’t stop parishioners from doing it anyway; he told the Register-Herald, “The bottom line is this is the attack of the devil on my church.” State officials have linked most of the cases in the broader outbreak to either church services or tourism to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Even a priest of a Catholic church outside Sacramento, California, who did not wear a mask while giving Communion on June 13 and 14 — ignoring the guidance from the diocese said that they should do so— tested positive for the virus. To date, at least, none of his parishioners (or the unmasked deacons who also gave out Communion) have tested positive, according to news reports.

It seems like it is time to ask an important question: Is the recalcitrance of Christians — and, predominantly evangelical Christians — to wearing masks and limiting their churchgoing killing their neighbors? Or, alternatively: Why is it such a big deal for churches and the faithful to wear masks, or worship online at home?

The answer to these questions lies in understanding something that’s become implicit about some faith traditions in America: For many, their religious activities are not just about their faith, it is also about their politics. And since a simple face covering has become the focus of the new political culture war — going without a mask is standing for freedom, according to those who don’t want to wear one because they are following the president — it’s not surprising then that churches, especially conservative ones, are hotbeds for unmasked worship, limited social distancing and, thus, the spread of the coronavirus.

It is, after all, important to love one’s neighbor — but in America, individual freedom is often more prized than biblical admonitions. The churches that pressed to open their doors early or even meet in defiance of stay-at-home orders did so not because they were afraid their members’ faith would fail in 90 days. Pastors prefer to preach to members (who then open their physical wallets when a basket is passed) rather than a computer screen of people. Pastor Tony Spell — who was placed on house arrest for opening up his church in Louisiana in defiance of state stay-at home orders — is an excellent example of a pastor whose demands seemed to be less about meeting the needs of his members and more about attaining broader recognition for himself and the church.

Not all churches however, have forgotten how to love their neighbor; many churches in America are being careful, implementing distancing requirements, forgoing singing and requiring members to wear masks. A pastor in Orange County, California, asked the board of supervisors to reimplement a mask requirement (and was ridiculed for her efforts, rather brutally).

Or take the Houston Northwest Church — which, like Phoenix’s Dream City Church that played host to the Trump rally, finds itself in the middle of one of the new rapidly growing epicenters of COVID-19 in America. It has decided that all attendees should wear masks. According to pastor Steve Bezner, they began to see masks as, and explain to parishioners that masks represent, a “love of neighbor.” When in-person services resumed in early June, masks were required to be worn upon entering the sanctuary and, once inside, if members did not wish to wear a mask, they are required to sit in the maskless section, while those wearing a mask sit together, as well.

Other churches, of course, are forgoing meeting in person altogether until the situation improves.

While the virus rages across America, to mask or not to mask isn’t really so much a question of politics as it is an imperative of public health. So if Christians truly believed that they should love their neighbors as themselves or obey the golden rule, then wearing masks ought to be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, for so long, many churches preached that Republicanness was next to godliness — and now a strict adherence to the gospel of Trump all but demands they ignore those of Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31 and Luke 10:27.

But if we are ever going to end this pandemic — and grieving over Zoom and iPads — people of faith are going to have to listen to science and the Bible, care for each other and our communities as much as ourselves and our political heroes, and wear our masks.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-phoenix-megachurch-rally-proves-how-much-faith-face-ncna1231992

Trump’s Phoenix megachurch rally proves how much faith and masks are now political

ProfB — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 17:34:43 +0000

Despite the Bible’s invitation to love one’s neighbor, not wearing masks to protect said neighbors is all the rage in certain churches. But why?

Other churches, of course, are forgoing meeting in person altogether until the situation improves.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-phoenix-megachurch-rally-proves-how-much-faith-face-ncna1231992

Democrats will lose in 2018 if they don’t shut up about civility and shout about our democracy dying

ProfB — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 08:28:36 +0000

Rejoice, Republicans, you will have another majority on your hands, because Democratic messaging for the 2018 election cycle is nonexistent.

Harsh? Not even. The unimaginative leaders of the Democratic Party — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez — have been playing nice and talking about the virtues of “civility,” while the Republican Party has been accusing Democrats of backing Communism and supporting the violent street gang MS-13. (Trump has additionally call ed a sitting Democratic congresswoman “an extraordinarily low IQ person” and Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas,” among other gems that “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer” might recall.)

Examples of the Democratic party eating its own, especially their women, are plentiful. Nancy Pelosi tweeted about “striving to make American Beautiful again” when Maxine Waters called for her supporters to confront Trump admiration officials to express their political opposition; Chuck Schumer criticized Waters as well. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won a stunning victory against longtime Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., Pelosi was dismissive. “They made a choice in one district. So let’s not get yourself carried away as an expert in demographics and all of that.”

After all, has Nancy Pelosi been around America lately? America is not beautiful. It is turgid and angry, with racism around every corner. White people are calling the cops on a black kid mowing lawns. A white man yelled at a woman wearing a Puerto Rico T-shirt that she had no business celebrating the territory, which is part of the United States. Immigrant kids are separated from their parents, drugged in shelters, and having to defend themselves at one year of age in immigration court. We have a president who cozies up to dictators, one of whose operatives sought to upend our electoral system while dissing our long term allies.

If democracy depends on Democrats retaking power — in the words of the Washington Monthly’s Paul Glastris— then the Democrats must start thinking differently, and they must start messaging differently. Playing respectability politics is not going to get us back the House, the Senate or the White House; going high when they go low ended with the low-goers winning.

The inability of Democratic leadership to come up with a coherent message to engage and battle Trumpism and the Republican Party is unconscionable: Trump’s daily chaos and his policy upheaval should frame every utterance from the Democratic Party. There is, after all, so much from which to choose, from immigrant children kept in cages to the judiciary being stacked for the next 50 years. While Sen. Schumer has said that he will fight Kavanaugh’s appointment, no clear unified message has come from Senate Democrats on how, exactly, they plan to either push back against the nomination or lay his decisions directly at the White House’s door. And when activists take matters into their own hands, the timidity that characterized so much of the Democratic response to Trump in 2016 is on full display: Don’t irk the vast center, they seem to say, no matter how much it fires up the left.

Democrats should be able to run on one clear message with which we all agree: Democracy is being destroyed under the Trump administration. The Republican Party is the Party of Trump, and Trumpism is not democracy. It might not be “civil” to accuse the other side of ruining the country, but they’ve never been shy about doing it to us and, this time, it’s true. Come out fighting, instead of trying to be polite and civil; Trumpism has proven that bullying is a winning strategy.

If Democrats cannot get a clear coherent message of why, exactly, voters should flock to the polls in a rebuke to the absolute chaos of this Trump Presidency — one which is mired in scandal and is stripping away every policy gain for which Democrats worked since the Roosevelt Administration — the party deserves to lose so that we can find something better with which to replace it. This time of national upheaval should be a clarion call for a clear message of common sense and fighting for democracy. If Democrats can’t find that message, then perhaps it will be time to change the symbol of the party from a donkey to a jackass.

NBC Think