Donald Trump stunned a roomful of Black journalists this month when he claimed Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” a few years ago. The former President has also in recent weeks repeatedly mispronounced Harris’ first name and said she would be treated as a “play toy” by world leaders.
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The first woman of color running as a major party’s presidential nominee is expected to continue to draw political attacks with racist or misogynistic undertones until Election Day. For many women of color at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, the advice they had for Harris for the next 10 weeks could be summed up in four words: Don’t take the bait.
“Some things you don’t even need to dignify—act like you didn’t even hear,” says Rev. Shari Nichols-Sweat, a 66-year-old retired high school music teacher from Chicago, who belongs to the same historically Black sorority as Harris, Alpha Kappa Alpha. Nichols-Sweat was at the United Arena on Thursday night, having just watched Harris’ convention speech.
Speaking to the country, Harris described how she saw first-hand as a child the challenges her mother faced as “a brilliant, five-foot-tall, brown woman with an accent” who emigrated to the U.S. from India at the age of 19 with a dream to become a breast cancer research scientist. “But she never lost her cool,” Harris said. “She was tough.”
Harris is taking the same approach. Instead of expressing outrage at Trump’s comments or calling them racist and sexist, she has often responded with a light touch, saying such comments are a part of the “same old show” of disrespect, and dismissing Trump and his allies as “weird” and Trump himself an “unserious man.”
Harris will come face-to-face with Trump in a primetime debate in Philadelphia on Sept. 10, where he may further question her racial identity and level personal attacks against her in front of a nationally televised audience. She’s already doing debate prep sessions to plan out how she will respond to Trump’s tactics in person, according to campaign officials.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama, during her convention speech on Tuesday, addressed the racist rhetoric and attack lines that have been wielded against Harris, warning that people “are going to do everything they can to distort” her background and accomplishments. “My husband and I, sadly, know a little something about this,” she said, before calling out by name Trump, who peddled unfounded “birther” allegations against Barack Obama. “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black,” she said.
Obama offered a piece of advice to Harris: “Going small is never the answer,” she said. “Small is petty, it’s unhealthy and, quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.”
Like Harris, Angela Alsobrooks, a Democratic Senate candidate who had a primetime speaking slot at the DNC on Tuesday, could also make history this cycle as Maryland’s first Black Senator. She tells TIME the racist and demeaning attacks against Harris are a sign Trump’s worried about losing: “He attacks her because she wins,” she says. Harris’ candidacy has “excited and engaged people” and she “should continue to be exactly who she is and continue working,” Alsobrooks says.
Alexandria Alston, 33, a fashion designer and embroiderer from Chicago who attended Harris’ speech Thursday night, said the Vice President is playing it right to not give Trump’s insults too much oxygen. “She is keeping her focus on what she needs to keep it on. Sometimes when people attack you, you have to look forward and not necessarily give them so much attention.” Those baiting comments were effective distractions in previous election cycles, Alston says. But she thinks this time is different. “You know this is a tactic of his, and so I don’t think we’re taking it,” Alston says.
Rather than hurt Harris, the attacks diminish the one lobbing them, says Krystal Kidd, from Southfield, Michigan. “I’m really disappointed because I really thought he was a dynamic businessman once upon a time,” she says. “They show he hasn’t done his due diligence to be competitive in this race.”
Like so many others at the convention this week, Kidd hopes Harris continues to ignore such efforts by Trump. “She doesn’t have to do anything to push back against him,” says Kidd. “Everything she’s worked for speaks for her.”
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