Dear Kamala Harris: Be Audacious Like Fannie Lou Hamer
Yesterday morning, I listened to Kamala Harris, the Vice Presidential Nominee, credit Joe Biden for having the audacity to select her, a Black woman, to be his running mate. I was disappointed because Harris’s slogan when she ran for president was “For the People,” Ta-Nehisi Coates points out, “the question is […] what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term, “people” to mean” (Coates, 2015, pg. 6). Coates contends that this country’s contradictions are based upon the notion that people who believe that they are white see themselves as “the people” and the rest of us are silenced, marginalized, and dehumanized. Hence, the fight to be recognized as “the people” is long and painful. It has led to the death of countless of us, including Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, and Korryn Gaines. Our struggle to be named as the people must continue; our fight against erasure and silence; our fight for our breath.
Considering the nature of our fight, we must never claim it audacious for any white person to recognize our worth. Joe Biden’s true audacity was not selecting Kamala Harris to be his running mate. Rather, it was when, as an old white man, he told the first Black President of the United States that he wanted his voice to matter and to be the last one in the room when decisions happen. Biden suffers the audaciousness of white supremacy. Our fight is against white supremacy. We must, therefore, draw on and bring attention to the audacious fight of our ancestors, women like Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper’s wife from Mississippi who said,
I am determined to become a first-class citizen…[and] if registering to vote means becoming a first-class citizen and changing the structure of our State’s government, I am determined to get every Negro in the State of Mississippi registered. By doing this we can get things we have always been denied the right to.” (Mills, 1993, p. 79).
Hamer was audacious because she was fighting to become a “first-class citizen;” for us to become the people. After 400 plus years of Black women like Hamer fighting for our recognition, the movement for Black lives, and the demand that a Black woman is named vice presidential nominee, we secured a victory. By crediting Biden with audacity, Harris does a disservice to our fight because she decenters our victory and centers the white gaze on herself and all of us.
One way that we can refocus the lens on our collective fight, is to learn from Black women educators. My research of Black women teachers has uncovered a powerful phenomenon I termed, “reciprocal recognition” or the process of Black girls and women teachers seeing themselves in each other. As a result, these girls and women hold each other to high standards and make each other visible. Kamala Harris, we who seek to become the people see ourselves in you. Do you see yourself in us? If you do, then stop being deferential to Joe Biden or any other white man. When you do that we are silenced and erased. We need you to see yourself in us. Be audacious like our Black women ancestors. Below are a few examples of their audacious struggle to be the people:
Harriet Tubman was audacious when she traveled back south to free the enslaved. Sojourner Truth was audacious when she asked, “Aint I a Woman?” Rosa Parks was audacious when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. Fannie Lou Hamer was audacious when she demanded more than two seats at the Democratic National Convention. Anita Hill was audacious when she stood up to white men including Joe Biden and acknowledged that she was sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas. Toni Morrison was audacious when she decentered the white gaze in American literature.
We need you to be audacious like Black women who struggled to make us free. Credit them for their work. Fight with us to ensure we become ‘first-class citizens.” We need you to see yourself in us like you did when you questioned William Barr, Jeff Sessions, Brett Kavanaugh, and Joe Biden. You were audacious when you confronted Biden for supporting white supremacists and challenging bussing. We need your reciprocal recognition of us who seek to become the people. Together, we keep our responsibility to our ancestors to achieve our goal. To do so, we will vote and register voters as Hamer did. In turn, be accountable to us. Begin by acknowledging Black women including Fannie Lou Hamer and Anita Hill. Prosecute Breonna Taylor’s killers. Stop saying that you fight for the “little guy.” Instead, say, “I fight for little Black girls like me to be the people.”
