JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Vice President Kamala Harris' historic candidacy ended in defeat last week. But for some Americans, her four-month bid for the presidency left a big mark.
SHARMANDA JEAN-FRANCOIS: Just seeing that she was able to be in a position like that is really inspiring for me and other young Black women.
SUMMERS: That's Sharmanda Jean-Francois. She's a senior at Howard University, Harris' Alma mater.
JEAN-FRANCOIS: She really painted a portrait that, no matter what, our voices are heard. Our voices matter, and we're worthy to be in positions like that.
SUMMERS: For Jean-Francois, Harris' racial identity contributed to her appeal as a candidate - that and her stance on reproductive rights. It's a sentiment echoed by many women of color who cast their ballots for Harris - that they felt represented by her. Among them is Jolikha Ali, a 65-year-old in New York City.
JOLIKHA ALI: I really saw myself in her 'cause I am Black and South Asian. And I really thought she could be the person to get the vote to unseat Trump, but apparently not.
SUMMERS: Ali says she gravitated toward Harris because of her identity. She also believes Harris' identity cost her the election.
ALI: Sexism and racism - that's really what it comes down to. And I don't know that this country's ready to elect a woman president of any race, to tell you the truth.
SUMMERS: Ali and Jean-Francois say they're disappointed by the outcome of the presidential race. And yet, looking back on the campaign, both women say they're ultimately walking away hopeful.
ALI: She should hold her head up high. History will show that she was the stepping stone. We will get there. I just hope that it's in my lifetime.
SUMMERS: Kamala Harris' candidacy was historic. But the first woman of color to lead a major party's ticket lost, so where does that leave her legacy? Here to answer that is Tressie McMillan Cottom. She's a sociologist and a New York Times opinion columnist. Hi there.
TRESSIE MCMILLAN COTTOM: Hi - pleasure to be here.
SUMMERS: Tressie, if I can, I want to start with something that you wrote in The New York Times shortly after Election Day, and I'm going to quote you here. You wrote that, "her ascendancy to the top of her party should have felt like the realization of my childhood dreams. Instead, for weeks, I have felt isolated in my ennui." Explain what you mean by that.
MCMILLAN COTTOM: Well, I, like many people, lived through the Obama election and presidency. And that set sort of a standard for me about, you know, this sense of hopefulness, especially among Black Americans, about whether or not this nation could even nominate, much less elect, a Black president. And having gotten as close as Kamala Harris got felt really significant and important from an intellectual standpoint, but I really struggled with the fact that it did not have, for me, the same scale and depth of hopefulness and optimism that I had always imagined I would feel when this moment came.
And I wrestled with whether or not that was about the way that she became the candidate, if it was about the context within which she became the candidate, or if this said something about my relationship to this particular candidate. And I think I felt a sort of overidentification with a very qualified, high-profile, Black female leader being called in when democracy was in crisis. So if democracy is like a business - right? - what we know from social science research is that women leaders are often called in to be the first woman leader when the company is in crisis. And I thought, well, what a time for us to finally call a Black woman up for leadership - right? - when democracy itself is on the ballot. And that stripped, for me, some of the hopefulness - that it had a certain sense of desperation. You know, one of the ways I said it to a friend was that, you know, it's hard to be excited about the reward when it comes with so much risk.
SUMMERS: Mmm. We know that Black women have been a bedrock of the Democratic Party for decades, with their organizing, their leadership fueling victory after victory. And you wrote in your piece that they have, quote, "saved democracy enough times to deserve more than cosmetic diversity." What do Black women deserve instead?
MCMILLAN COTTOM: Black women are voters. We are constituents. I don't love this rhetoric about Black women saving democracy or us relying on Black women to be the canaries in the coal mine. I like to remind people that the canary in that coal mine - it dies. I mean, it is - yes, it is a signal to the miners, but the canary itself dies. And the sacrifice that Black women have made for Democratic politics and for the Democratic Party, I think, deserves more than a hail-Mary candidacy.
I think we deserve a real candidate with real institutional support who will then be held responsible for responding to Black women as voters - meaning we have more to offer this party than our identity and our commitment. We also have economic issues. We are also working-class voters. We also live in rural America. That is to say, we have political interests that I think the Democratic Party owes us some attention to because we have been, as you point out, a bedrock of the Democratic Party's base.
SUMMERS: While Harris did lose, in some races further down the ballot, there were signs of some political momentum and victories for Black women, including the fact that, come January, the Senate will see two Black women serving in the chamber together for the first time. And it made me wonder - what do you think that future Black women candidates should borrow from Vice President Harris' playbook, and what things should they leave behind?
MCMILLAN COTTOM: Oh, I'm thinking about this so much. I think there are a couple things. I, again, understand the constraints on her ability to do so, but I continue to think that there was opportunity there to lean into the historic nature of this campaign. Yes, there was some potential downside during a conservative backlash of leaning into, quote-unquote, "identity." But I think one of the things we learned from the Obama coalition is that there is a broad base of coalition support to be built that makes people feel good about doing the right thing -about finally voting for the woman candidate, about voting for a Black woman candidate - and I'm not sure that subsuming the narrative about the historic nature of her race and gender helped in that regard.
I think one of the things that we may get from this playbook for people who are not necessarily running for president, but for downballot races for Black women, is that you can raise money. I think there is a narrative out there that we only rely on or can only be relied on to do small-donor donations. There is obviously, I think, some appetite there for competitive candidates and for raising money, especially, again, when they have the institutional support to do so.
And then finally, I do think that there was something about how well Harris embodied presidential power during her campaign. Women are often constrained to talking about politics through the, quote-unquote, "kitchen table" analogies - right? - or talking about politics that are assumed to be more associated with gender or education policy and that kind of thing. But Harris, in many ways, ran as an aggressive foreign policy hawk, sort of center-right, and talked, I think, most eloquently, actually, even, about foreign policy in some ways than she did about domestic policy. And I actually like that opening for Black women, who I just happen to think have as much to offer to politics than we are often given credit for.
SUMMERS: That is Tressie McMillan Cottom, a sociologist and an opinion columnist for The New York Times. Thank you.
MCMILLAN COTTOM: Thank you.
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