Democratic Senator, Kamala Harris, representing California, did what she does best yesterday as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. A former prosecutor, Senator Harris knows the best way to get to the truth is to not allow a witness to filibuster. In the middle of some pointed questioning objected to by fellow Republican Senator John McCain, Attorney General Jeff Session, said, “if I don’t qualify it [my answer] you’ll accuse me of lying.” Amid feigned annoyance by Mr. Sessions, he conceded that when rushed, “it makes me nervous…”
Kamala Harris committed the same offense as her allied Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren this past February http://time.com/4788505/elizabeth-warren-2020-democrats/, competence, education and preparedness. In addition to that equation, she is a woman of color. I am a black man who laughed out loud when pundits and some very erudite people came out after the election of former President Obama, and said we are entering a post racial era.
As many black men or women in America would have told you, segments of white America saw it as an opportunity to spit on the legacy of Black Progress. It started from day one when rumors spread that Barack Obama was a Manchurian candidate who falsified his life’s story. Fox News playing endless loops of Reverend Wright, using the, they are all the same strategy. The spurious claims of pal(ing) around with terrorist, advanced by a curiously pretty gun toting, female Alaskan governor, who was eventually abandoned and ridiculed, when she proved to be all trendy glasses and no momma grisly.
Now Fox News is ignoring what may be the biggest attack on American democracy since The American Revolution. I can only imagine what was going through Jeff Sessions mind when Ms. Harris dared do her job. I am sure Senator McCain knew that Sessions was probably seething inside and felt it necessary to come to his aid and silence Senator Harris. Anyone who watches congressional hearings the gender and color bias is apparent. In the post-game spin, Trump surrogate and spokesperson Jason Miller accused Ms. Harris of being “hysterical” code for hush little lady http://www.mediaite.com/online/cnns-kirsten-powers-confronts-jason-miller-for-calling-kamala-harris-hysterical/.
I am the grandfather of three young black women. One a small business owner, the second a college graduate and the youngest just finished her freshman year with aspirations of entering law school. It disturbs me to think that in their careers giving an order and showing firm, and yes sometime, angry leadership would get them labeled as hysterical by some narrow-minded Neanderthal.
The moving of the bar for women and people of color is so fraught with male white privilege, that the daily micro-aggressions are unfortunately accepted as, ‘that’s just the way it is.’ Imagine the invoking of stereotypes if Barack Obama had dared say, wielding a gun on a New York street would not hurt his support; or if during questioning from constituents or a debate moderator, Ms. Harris had said, slow down when I am rushed it makes me nervous. Oh, little lady…
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