Kamala Harris’ Double-Bind, Tightrope Walk to the White House
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On August 13, I had the pleasure of delivering a keynote address Leaning into Diversity at the Career Counselors Consortium. I made the following statement in hope that it would empower career coaches to lean into conversations with their clients about how to effectively navigate bias in their job search.
“The job search obstacle course is real. And the more ambitious one is, or the higher one climbs the career ladder, ultimately becoming the first…x, y, or z, the more challenging the obstacle course becomes. Take a moment—imagine—what the obstacle course is like for Kamala Harris becoming the first Black Woman to appear on a major-party ticket. What do you believe her executive coach talks about in their coaching sessions?”
I paused. I allowed this message to sink in. Each career coach listening attentively through their private Zoom portals, pondering the importance of Leaning into Diversity.
Do you recall how I described the obstacle course in my #IncreaseDiversity newsletter article entitled, “The Hiring System: Part I: Keesha Meets the Hiring System,” published on 07.07.20? It read…
“To have a career, Keesha must interact with the hiring system and all the policies, practices, and behaviors with which companies comply to preserve it. This hiring system has a series of challenging mental and emotional obstacles that can be covert and overt. Therefore, it creates an obstacle course that Keesha must overcome while simultaneously experiencing a battle of two worlds. She wrangles an internal dialogue of, “Am I enough?” In the other world, she encounters external perceptions whereby people question, “Is she enough?” And the only way to get through this obstacle course is to navigate it well. Navigating the hiring system can mean jumping over landmines of appropriate versus inappropriate behavior, dodging microaggressions, swimming through unconscious biases, and balancing the tight rope of assimilation versus authenticity to be likable and make others feel comfortable.”
And below the description, I published this image.
Image Credit: Manu.se (Source)
It was two days prior to the keynote that Kamala Harris was named Joe Biden’s running mate and it was 8 days later, on August 19, that she delivered her DNC acceptance speech. The first half of her speech took me right back to my keynote message.
Her word choice was so intentional and instantly revealed what Kimberlé Crenshaw coined intersectionality and the double-bind of race and gender. This is the double-bind where one must be perceived as both strong and sensitive, be psychologically durable, yet do not engage in behaviors that preserve psychological durability, be equal yet be oppressed, and be feminine yet reject traditional feminine attributes.
Image Credit: Miriam Dobson (Source)
Kamala’s goal, like many of those who are on their job search today, is to be known, liked, and trusted enough to get hired for the job. The only difference is that America is Kamala’s employer.
Kamala’s life—over the next 69 days—will be one of the most complex obstacle courses any of us will witness. And my observation of it started with her DNC acceptance speech.
In today’s article, I’m unpacking the pivotal moments in Kamala’s DNC acceptance speech that revealed her own obstacle course.
The acceptance speech opened with an homage to the 19th amendment where Kamala celebrated women and the fight for the right to vote.
“This week marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment. And we celebrate the women who fought for that right.”
But she had to quickly balance that message and pivot in acknowledgement to the Black women who were left out of that celebration and who were still struggling to have the same rights as all men and white women.
“Yet so many of the Black women who helped secure that victory were still prohibited from voting, long after its ratification.”
It was then that she quickly introduced her ethnicity, being born of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.
“There's another woman, whose name isn't known, whose story isn't shared. Another woman whose shoulders I stand on. And that's my mother—Shyamala Gopalan Harris. She came here from India at age 19 to pursue her dream of curing cancer. At the University of California Berkeley, she met my father, Donald Harris—who had come from Jamaica to study economics.”
While disclosing her immigrant parents, Kamala also had to navigate those who question whether she is truly African American and whether she was raised in an authentic African American experience and struggle.
“They fell in love in that most American way—while marching together for justice in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”
But Kamala also needed the audience to know that she can be relatable having been raised by a single mother who was not wealthy.
“When I was 5, my parents split and my mother raised us mostly on her own. Like so many mothers, she worked around the clock to make it work—packing lunches before we woke up— and paying bills after we went to bed. Helping us with homework at the kitchen table—and shuttling us to church for choir practice.”
And now she must do the bi-ethnic tightrope walk honoring her Blackness while respecting her Indian heritage.
“She raised us to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage.”
Image Credit: Lauren Conrad @ohhappydani (Source)
She had to prove that her Indian heritage was not just lip service for the sake of the campaign, she wanted you to see that her Tamil roots are real.
“Family is my uncles, my aunts—my chitthis.”
Navigating her Blackness and the one-drop rule, she still had to overcome the “not black enough” perception and racial imposter syndrome by introducing her predominantly Black Sorority and announce her graduation from a historically Black college and university (HBCU), Howard University.
“Family is my beloved Alpha Kappa Alpha...our Divine 9...and my HBCU brothers and sisters.”
And then she must clearly state her credentials in an effort to navigate the perception of being part of a tokenistic recruiting strategy and diversity hire.
“That led me to become a lawyer, a District Attorney, Attorney General, and a United States Senator.”
In the midst of balancing being woman enough, Black enough, and Indian enough, she still has to remind America that she is not too much of any of those identities and can still appeal to the vast majority of the population who differently identify. She has to balance her identities to demonstrate her ability to be VP for everyone.
“And at every step of the way, I’ve been guided by the words I spoke from the first time I stood in a courtroom: Kamala Harris, For the People.”
In the final part of her tightrope walk to introducing herself as the VP nominee, she had to remind the audience of one very important detail that has seemed to garner criticism lately; that she is a U.S. citizen.
“I keep thinking about that 25-year-old Indian woman—all of five feet tall—who gave birth to me at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.”
She then acknowledges her faith, although careful not to appear too religious.
“To the Word that teaches me to walk by faith, and not by sight.”
And if her speech was not revealing enough, consider what went into the decision for Kamala’s hair clothes, and make-up. Do you recall Deborah Tannen’s, “the Hillary Factor” describing the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t paradox facing women leaders?
Image Credit: xykademiqz (Source)
This speech and Kamala’s journey is a real example of the experience of having to navigate an obstacle course to get a job. It is the experience of being ambitious and different and constantly having the world question whether you are enough all while battling subtle voices in your own mind asking, “am I enough?”
Kamala’s career brings the idea of enough-ness to the forefront of conversations and our ability as employers to increase diversity hinges on being able to expand our thinking around who is enough to get the job done. Let’s move this conversation into the comments.
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Join the conversation in the comments. What additional areas of an obstacle course do you believe Kamala will face over the next 69 days, on the road to the White House?
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