Kamala Harris Proves The Most Disrespected Person In America Is Still The Black Woman

This column is part of HuffPost’s “She the People” series, stories by Black women exploring Kamala Harris’ historic candidacy. To read more, visit our hub.

Over 60 years ago, human rights activist and African American revolutionary Malcolm X duly assessed and asserted, “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”

The most disrespected, unprotected and neglected person in America is still the Black woman.

If you don’t believe me, look at what’s happening to Vice President Kamala Harris following the announcement of her intent to run for president of the United States of America. This is the first Black woman to serve as district attorney for one of the most populated cities in the country. The first Black woman to serve as the attorney general of the largest justice department in the land. The first Black woman to serve as a United States senator from the third-largest state in the nation. And the first Black woman to serve as vice president of the United States, a role only one step away from the position she’s running for. Yet, the first thing being questioned by her inept adversaries is her qualifications and competency.

You would think that the qualifications of this bold, beautiful woman of many firsts, who embodies the accolades of sheer brilliance, would speak for themselves and not be questioned. How could they be? How could a sitting vice president of the United States be disrespectfully reduced to an unqualified “DEI candidate” with no experience? How is it logical that this “colored” Howard University law school graduate, who climbed the ranks of public leadership to earn the second-highest position in the world, could be called “dumb as a rock”? Why does it matter how she laughs, what she wears, if she has children, or who she dated prior to meeting her husband several decades ago?

The reason this misogynoir matters is because Harris is not just a woman; she is a Black woman living in a country founded on patriarchy and white supremacy. This means that, in terms of societal importance, she is thought of as less important than every other demographic that exists within this country. As a result, the default inclination is to question her qualifications, competency and intellectual capacity to do the job. As a Black woman in a white male-dominated profession, the unspoken inference is that she must be twice as qualified to get the job, three times more effective at performing the job and, by all means, better play by “their rules” in order to keep the job. Otherwise, she’ll be publicly scrutinized, vilified and, if need be, criminalized.

Hence the illogical, infuriating and current attempts to label Harris as a “failed vice president” who needs to be “impeached” and thereby, as a matter of law, removed from her position.

Sadly, these humiliating, calculated, sadistic and toxic maneuvers reflect the execution of the same playbook employed against any and every Black woman who has had the gall to challenge the status quo. Just ask Kim Gardner, Aramis Ayala, Kim Foxx, Monique Worrell, Rachael Rollins, Fani Willis and Tish James. The only difference in the obvious mistreatment of Harris (and just about every other Black woman in professional settings across the country) is that the ugliness and vitriol exhibited toward her, for no other reason than the color of her skin, is on full global display. America can no longer plausibly deny the hypocrisy of a nation that claims to represent the ideals of freedom, justice and equality for all yet disrespects, neglects and fails to protect a demographic that consistently carries the morality of this nation on its back. Black women are the foundation for the preservation of our democracy. For that reason alone, they deserve to be protected. I just hope that this time we will be.