This Presidential Campaign Highlights the Duality of America

By Norman Franklin

Norman Franklin

It seems we can’t escape it; it seems we can’t, as a nation, grow beyond it. Race always seems to surface as a distraction.

It’s a divisionary tactic that prevents serious discussion of the issues that are important to voters.

The Republican candidates are free to be disrespectful, spread misinformation, and make outlandish claims that fan the flames of racial fears and ignite cultural discord. It seems to increase their likeability with their support base.

Harris, the Democrat’s candidate, doesn’t have the liberty to campaign with uncouth rhetoric, disinformation, and manipulation of cultural anxieties. She is a woman, an intersectional woman – a Black woman of Jamaican and southern Indian heritage.

Harris must navigate around and through racialized fears to campaign in a manner that does not allow this election to be about race. That would obscure the issues. Americans want to know where the candidates stand on the issues of national and international importance.

It would be ideal if the candidates would bring fresh ideas, and viable solutions for America’s problems. Instead, there is a propensity to trek through the muddy paths of anxieties, fears, and confusion.

But this is America.

We have a history that is inserting itself into the social and political conversations of today. Racist tropes and coded dog whistles liter the political landscape. It’s a minefield, any misstep by Harris could be explosive, and disruptive to positive dialogue.

The troubling dynamics faced by Black Americans weigh on VP Harris as she campaigns for the White House. She embodies the duality of progress tethered to the lingering challenges of race identity in America.

Harris, as the first African/Indian American to head the party ticket, faces high expectations and skepticisms, expectations from marginalized people of color, fears and skepticism from white America.

With the discipline required of a Commander in Chief, Harris cannot be drawn into entanglement with controversial, polarizing cultural issues. She runs the risk of being labeled “an angry Black woman.”

If elected, Harris would be the only President in history who has experience in all three branches of government – judicial, legislative and executive.

Despite her credentials and her experience, racial provocateurs denigrate her qualifications with the dismissive “she is a DEI hire” classification.

Diversity, equity and inclusion measures were implemented in corporate and educational institutions to mitigate decades of privileged driven disparities. Both minority hiring and college enrollments increased under DEI. Conservatives, considering all things equal, dismissively label DEI initiatives as progressive left-leaning ideology. Progressives advocate for social reform, economic equality, environmental equality, and fairness in society. That doesn’t sit well with conservatives.

There is socioeconomic and political change stirring in America. We are under construction.

Vice President Harris must travel the campaign trail with the posted warning always in front of her. “Caution, uneven pavement.”