An Emasculating Elephant

Vice President Kamala Harris Provided a Master Class to Women of All Races on How to Simultaneously Shatter a Craven Old White Supremacist Bully and Own Our Space at the Table

Vice President Kamala Harris’s first own of Tuesday night’s Presidential debate: shaking Donald Trump’s hand.

Convicted Felon and Adjudicated Rapist Inmate Number P01135809’s elongated power red tie didn’t stand a chance against Vice President Kamala Harris's gravitas, wisdom and capability. Instead of meeting her in the middle of the debate stage to cordially shake her hand as normal politicians do before a debate, the abnormal sub-par white man retreated to his corner wanting to avoid her. Harris though did not let him escape her and her power.

She entered his space. Extending her hand, she clasped his with firmness. This time his stance and handshake looked frail and weak, and he did not pull her into him to demonstrate his faux Alpha Maleness. He had already demonstrated his fear and desperation through his hair. Clearly he had dyed or rinsed it to make him appear youthful. My 14-year-old daughter noticed before I did.

In a strong steady voice with her clasp and handshake strong, the Vice President, who is a former criminal prosecutor, said to the bloated dementing white criminal, “Kamala Harris. Let’s have a good debate.”

She did not just own his space and her space—she dominated both.

Women of any race can study how Vice President Harris flipped the trite and stale gender role script that has been etched in stone over the centuries. She and other remarkable women like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mary Wollstonecraft, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisolm, Frances Perkins, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Erica Jong, Madonna and Beyoncé have been gradually breaking apart that stone. With the organization, work and help of the U.S. electorate, Vice President Harris’s election to the U.S. Presidency as its first woman president will act as TNT to that patriarchal and dusty stone.