The Feminist Case Against Kamala Harris
By Sadia Parveen
Graphic by Jas Calcitas
Source: Tom Williams, CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images
The breaker of many glass ceilings, Vice President Kamala Harris, has been the subject of both pop culture and mainstream feminism’s latest admiration. A brouhaha ensued in feminist media after her inaugural speech. From striking murals to "I may be the first woman in this office, I won't be the last” graphics, liberal feminism has embraced her as the new face of epithets like girl power and #GirlBoss. With a successful career filled with groundbreaking accomplishments, she does seem like a momentous win for the feminist movement. But when you dare look past the powerful yet empty identity politics at play, Harris’ sordid past as a prosecutor is the antithesis of feminism at its core.
Harris and her career are successful identity politics in action. As a biracial woman born to immigrant parents, her political history has been that of many firsts. She was California’s first Black and South Asian American woman to serve as Attorney General and to serve her tenure in the Senate. After the historic 2020 Biden-Harris victory, she extends her record of firsts as the highest-ranking female official in United States history, on top of the first woman of color to sit at a formidable position of power. She represents the melting pot of ethnicities America is known for and manifests the American dream tenfold.
Although Harris says that she intended to change the justice system from the inside-out, her work as San Francisco’s District Attorney (2004-2011) and California’s Attorney General (2011-2017) paints a completely different picture. Throughout her tenure in these positions, she pushed for anti-truancy policies that punished parents of chronically absent children with a hefty fine and jail sentences of up to one year. She laughed while recounting this initiative as a success story, neglecting the outcome of such reactionary policies that disproportionately affected vulnerable families of color who battle with poverty, disabilities and chronic illnesses.
Her “top cop” prosecutor persona also harmed transgender communities outside and inside the prison system. In 2015, she defended California’s decision to deny gender-affirming healthcare for an incarcerated trans woman named Michelle Norsworthy. Her prior actions as a District Attorney were also riddled with anti-sex work ideology. For many trans folk, sex work is an undeniable reality. Stigma and discrimination make basic healthcare, housing and education inaccessible. A majority of the trans community depends on consensual and safe sex work for basic survival. In 2008, Harris opposed an initiative to decriminalize sex work named Proposition K, calling it “completely ridiculous.” Her contribution to ban the adult section of Backpage — a website used by sex workers to safely identify and vet clients — pushed the trans community back in harm’s way, forcing them to find work through more dangerous methods once again.
Source: Erik McGregor, Pacific Press, LightRocket/Getty Images
During her presidential campaign, Harris presented a comprehensive LGBTQ plan aiming to tackle HIV/AIDS in communities of color and discrimination against trans people. However, it was devoid of other pressing issues mentioned earlier: the decriminalization of sex work and the right to gender-affirming healthcare for incarcerated transgender people. A 2015 report on “Transgender Experiences in Sex Work Recommends Decriminalization” by the National Center for Transgender Equality states that “Transgender sex workers reported high levels of harassment and violence, often at the hands of police: 64% reported being mistreated and nearly one in ten were sexually assaulted by police.” It goes on to reveal that “the report also found striking racial disparities, with Black and Latina/o transgender people, are far more likely to report any sex trade experience (44% and 33%).” The decriminalization of sex work is imperative in ending police brutality as it is faced by transgender people of color today.
Her silence and ignorance on this issue wasn’t surprising, considering her history as an enabler of the country’s broken criminal justice system. In her first three years as a District Attorney, San Francisco’s conviction rate spiked from 52 to 67% — a direct result of her tough-on-crime approach. Despite the fact that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and overcrowding in California prisons was 200% above the limit, her office repeatedly foiled decarceration plans under the argument that it would “severely impact fire camp participation — a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought.” Prison labor has long been a violation of human rights, forcing inmates to work less than two dollars per day.
She also declined to support early attempts for the legalization of marijuana but more recently — in true Kamala Harris fashion — laughed and admitted to having smoked weed during her college years. She distanced herself from cases of police violence and reform, and supported laws that forced schools and police to report undocumented juveniles with minor offenses to ICE, regardless of their innocence. As a senator in the Trump administration, she voted in favor of increasing the military budget by a record 700 billion dollars, and voted against federal funding for abortions.
The exhaustive critique of Harris as a feminist and human rights pioneer is not some revisionist history. Her constant Jekyll-and-Hyde on pressing matters is a matter of public knowledge. During her presidential campaign, she flip-flopped and expressed her support for various policies that contradicted her criminal justice record. That’s exactly who she is: a supposed “progressive prosecutor” who keeps chasing the status quo and refuses to take bold stances when required.
There’s nothing progressive about Harris, if that wasn’t already deducible. Her record as a woman of color in various high-level positions is fraught with punitive, reactionary policies that reinforced harm on communities of color. No one is denying Harris of her accomplishments, which is a victory for representation and diversity, considering the systemic oppression detailing the framework of American politics. The victory itself doesn’t mean much with how representation has become yet another capitalist endeavor pushed by marketing strategies. “Virtually every institution seized upon that term, ‘diversity.’ And I always ask, ‘Well, where is justice here?' ” Angela Davis said. “Are you going to ask those who have been subjugated to come inside of the institution, to participate in the same process that led to their marginalization? Diversity and inclusion without substantive change, without radical change, accomplishes nothing.”
Liberal feminism thrives tokenistic representation, diversity and identity politics. Harris is a salient example of liberal feminism’s celebration of empty leadership titles and markers of success, completely disregarding her past. Her history of enabling the carceral system is absolved in the name of representation; a linear comparison can be drawn to former President Barack Obama, who continues to maintain favorable public opinion and is celebrated as a “progressive feminist,” despite his presidency’s rampant bombings and drone strikes. Neither of them has taken accountability or apologized for their failures. Rather, they continue to withhold the “reformer of a broken system” narrative.
Diverse representation and identity politics should never act as a veil behind which a powerful person is lost. Harris has openly mocked leftist ideologies such as “building more schools, less jails,” has sided with capitalists, and continues to resist the mere idea of police abolition. As a feminist and a woman of color, watching liberal feminism praise Harris while refusing to hold her accountable intensifies the dissonance I feel from contemporary feminism; despite its growth over the past few years, it remains devoid of actual substance.
At the end of the day, Kamala Harris serves as a reminder that liberal feminism won’t liberate us. Contemporary feminism is in desperate need of intersectional practices that are both anti-capitalist and pro-abolitionist. It needs leaders who push for actual radical change. ◆