Kamala Harris is 'Not like Us'

By: Michael E. Cook

Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States

"So I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm gonna do something that's only gonna benefit black people. No, because whatever benefits that black family will benefit that community and society as a whole and the country, right?" -Kamala Harris

I never wanted to get heavily into politics or into the political side of things when it comes to TMR, but I realized this a few years ago, and it sunk in for me in recent years that trying to separate black people and our issues from politics is a juvenile delusion because since we were brought here, our skin color has been a political issue. So if you're a Foundational Black American, you cannot escape politics. And now that the millennial voters are taking center stage as the larger voting block in America, contention among the Democratic party specifically is all but assured. Mark my words, there are a lot of issues that we have going on in our community, but this Kamala Harris thing will be the tipping point that turns the divide between black men and black women into a devastating fissure to which there is no coming back.

So over the past few weeks, I have heard, watched, and engaged in conversations and debates surrounding the upcoming election. My opponents ranged from die-hard Democrats to voters who only vote Democrat out of fear for a Republican administration led by a second Trump term with limitless power. Thanks to that ruling with the supreme justice, you know, the one that says that the president of the United States is above the law and so long as they're acting within their, uh, within the confines of their presidency, whatever they do cannot be prosecuted. Yeah. The one where just one of the justices says that the president is like a king. That one. They're scared of what an administration under Trump with that kind of power would look like. And it's a fear that I very well understand.

I don't know if any of you guys have heard, but there's this thing called Project 2025 that's circulating and it's making the rounds. It's almost like a point of order, an agenda document of what they want to do and rules and policies that they want to implement in another Republican administration, specifically the Trump administration. So I get the fear.

But I gotta say, with all the political games being played this year, you know, the sleight of hand, the political theater, identity politics, and above all else, the fear-mongering, what neither party is appealing to, the thing that seems to keep getting buried under their bid for power: the Vox populi - the voice of the people.

Each administration, be it Democratic or Republican, has had a white whale or two that they chased to solidify their legacy as president. Specifically, on the Democrat side, you had Bill Clinton. Let's go that far back. His white whale was welfare reform. That was his big thing. He served two terms. Barack Obama. He inherited a financial crisis. He was chasing the healthcare problem, and he implemented LGBT laws to which same-sex marriages were legalized under his watch. He also served two terms. And then we have Joe Biden, whose white whale was also a mess that he inherited. Dealing with COVID, climate change, and immigration problems, among a myriad of other things.

But here's the thing: one thing has been clear with all those whales that these presidents have chased: America has a debt that it owes African Americans since June 19th, 1865, and there hasn't been a single presidential administration to tackle it. The American government to date has paid reparations to the American Indians, Japanese American internment camp victims and their descendants, to the Jewish community, and to Holocaust victims and their descendants. As they very well should. With the exception for the Jewish community, America has had a direct hand in damaging or destroying each of these communities.

But the reverence that they have for the Holocaust victims and survivors is almost sickening to me, bearing in mind the dismissive attitude of the American government and its citizens regarding centuries of slavery and oppression. They're short of a few centuries from what they went through to the injustices done to our ancestors.

Kamala Harris is no different.

Why just the other day, she put out this statement about anti-Semitic rhetoric and protests that happened in DC. This statement was put out on June 24th. It's on the official website of the United States government and it reads,

"Yesterday at Union Station in Washington DC, we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. I condemn any individual associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the state of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric are abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation. I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way. I support the right to peacefully protest, but let's be clear. Anti-Semitism, hate, and violence of any kind have no place in our nation." - Kamala Harris

I have to echo a sentiment of James Baldwin on the point that she made that the flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. Here's the thing, James Baldwin once said in an interview:

"You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my wife, my woman, my sister, my children, on some idealism which you assure me exists in America, which I have never seen." - James Baldwin

I get it: all have fallen short, nobody's perfect, etc, but I cannot see how you can, with a straight face, say that this nation has high ideals. It hasn't implemented any of them. In fact, the United States of America is an oxymoronic statement and we should really consider changing that because there is nothing united about this country whatsoever. There is nothing united about us. The United States of America is more of a series of territories that exercise a temporary truce. That's what we have going on. 50 states temporarily pretending to get along. We don't live up to any kind of high ideals as a nation. And the promise of America has long since been forgotten. Especially nowadays since nobody can even remotely afford the American dream.

Here's what cosplayers like Kamala and Cardi B don't realize: when you claim to be black, there is a target and a burden you inherit. The target is self-explanatory, but the burden, the burden you carry is the pursuit and/or the advancement of justice for the African American (ADOS/FBA) people and their ancestors. Anything less than that is a farce and a betrayal to the black experience in America and we can see you as a fraud that you are if you do not take up that fight. Yes, that includes Steve Harvey and Roland Martin, as well as others like them. Kamala Harris doesn't want to take up that fight because Kamala Harris doesn't share our heritage.

Kamala Harris isn't black.

Not in the sense that we know what to mean. Kamala Harris is a first-generation immigrant. I believe that's the term. She's the child of two immigrant parents. Her father was from Jamaica, and her mother is an Indian woman from India. Both were well-to-do when they came here. Kamala spent most of her life in upscale neighborhoods. So anyone and everyone who has ever had the black experience, from our most elite to our most depraved, we all know that even if we don't take up the fight, we know at least on some level that there's a fight to be had. And until justice is seen by our eyes, by our standards, the fight isn't over. It's about my voice, your voice, our voices amplified...until justice is done.

Kamala Harris doesn't get that.

We did an article on Kamala Harris back when she was a senator running for president in 2020. We learned then that the now Vice President Harris spent most of her life in well-to-do suburbs of California until she was 12 afterward, she lived in the suburbs of Canada after her mother divorced her father and took her and her sister up north. And that's where she lived the majority of her life. Now, based on where she's lived, where she's played, where she's traveled, the extent of her "black experience" was Howard University, the HBCU that she attended when she finally came back to the States. And then once more during her time as a prosecutor as a California district attorney.

I'm glossing over a few details, admittedly, For time but from all that we've gathered, her life story, and everything like that, it is easy to deduce that Kamala Harris has always, always been disconnected from the black struggle. Yeah, sure, she may have caught some residual kickback being a woman with brown skin, but she is no more black than once again, Cardi B. She claims the heritage in which she grew up, is Indian.

Indian is not a black woman, and Jamaican is not an African American woman.

It's funny that during her presidential run in 2020, she says she smoked a little bit of marijuana during an interview with The Breakfast Club and that she listened to a lot of Tupac growing up. Yet she spent the majority of her career as District Attorney putting away black men for marijuana charges and not even violent ones at that as well as locking up single black mothers for their children being truant.

And so now here we are at 2024 and she's putting on her black costume once again trying to appeal to the emotions of black people for our vote to get her into the presidency without promising anything in return.

Have we forgotten the interview she did with The Grio back in 2020? It's almost as if everybody has forgotten the things that she said only four years ago or her record as District Attorney. Like we have short-term memory loss or something. If we don't start holding these candidates feet to the fire and throwing their words back in their faces about the things that they said, the politics that they endorse, the political leanings that they are all too comfortable with displaying for the public outside of an election year, and then forgetting about it during an election year, then nothing will ever change. This is the same tactic that Democrats have been using for the last 60 years. I can't tell you what to do with your vote, but I implore you to use your vote responsibly.

As far as I'm concerned, what you do with your vote is your business. Do you want to vote Democrat? Vote Democrat. Do you want to vote Republican? Vote Republican. If you want to throw your vote to a third party because you don't like any of your options, that's your business. If you don't want to vote at all, that's also your business. I do however, want you to do more than just vote the ballot up and down the ticket without a second thought or any thought at all for that matter.

Life is, unfortunately, a series of decisions, concessions, and compromises. On many fronts. But none of these things should be made - not a single decision, not a single concession, not a single compromise - in ignorance. I have said it for years, the Democratic Party has not done enough to earn the loyalty of black people or anything for that matter.

They have not earned your votes. They have not earned this diehard loyalty.

We have to let them know that the same tactics that tricked our parents, our grandparents, and our great-grandparents into blind support will not and cannot work on us in 2024 and beyond. Remember that we only look like our ancestors. This is a different group of black people that they're dealing with, and they need to know that. But they'll never learn that if we don't force them to look.

So even if it means that the country falls into chaos, the Democratic Party needs to know that they cannot keep underestimating our voting power. If the NRA and other corporate PACs can get what they want from their votes and their investments for their chosen political candidate, Asians can get what they want for their votes toward their chosen political candidates, Jews, Mexicans, and all-around white folks in general. If every other group of people can get something for their vote and their chosen candidate, then I think that it is well past time that black people should get what they want with our votes or they get no vote at all.

We want tangibles in 2024. No more feel-good words, no more trying to associate with the young people by interviewing with celebrities and getting their endorsements. Some of whoever that the kids are listening to nowadays, having conversations with people like Cardi B or a Sexy Red, or I don't know, whoever else is popular nowadays, but having a real sit-down conversation with intellectuals, activists - people who are in the trenches fighting for change - to take an issue to the capital and be forced to implement it. Then and only then will you start to gain the trust of black voters. We have been burned one too many times by broken promises and those fear tactics they like to throw around so willingly. Last election, Democracy was on the ballot. This election, they're throwing Project 2025 in your face to make you scared.

It is not enough to be the lesser of two evils. It is not enough to give feel-good speeches that make us think that you see us and our struggles. It is not enough to do a few TikTok dances and spout a few key phrases from pop culture. It's not enough to put off specifically black issues for the next administration and the next administration and the next administration to handle while we watch every other specific need be met before us. It is not enough to make promises that you do not intend to keep. It's certainly not enough and nowhere near acceptable to be the candidate we use to vote AGAINST the other guy. You have to be a candidate worth voting FOR.

Enough is enough.

So, until Democrats start putting their best foot forward and not expecting us to just simply "fall in line", like worker drones, without any tangible proof of good faith, then they will lose. And what happens after that? I don't care. They need to stop taking us for granted. I'll sooner see the country burn than be used as a pawn in someone else's bid for power. Let me be clear: I don't care that Kamala Harris is running for President. I truly don't. My qualm is the way in which she's running. Be fucking honest about who you are and what you're about. How can I trust you otherwise? How can anyone?

So if the choice is to be vomited on or shitted on, like Riley from the Boondocks, I'm choosing to get the hell out of the way.