💡 Why the Protests Against Kamala Harris Are Making Her More Relatable (w/quotes from Shirley Chisholm)

“We have been so patient and loyal … and what has it gotten us? We want our full share now.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

When critics and protestors attempt to tear down Vice President Kamala Harris, they unintentionally reveal how deeply racism and misogyny remain woven into political discourse. Their attacks are not exposing her flaws — they are exposing our culture’s own.

Here’s why:

1️⃣ Because Black Women Know What It’s Like to Be Blamed for Things We Didn’t Create

The conflict in the Middle East existed long before Kamala Harris ever took her first breath — forged by men in power, sealed by decades of decisions she did not make. Yet somehow, in the twisted ritual of blame, her name becomes the lightning rod.

This is not reason. It is reflex.
The same reflex that has always sought a Black woman to carry the weight of the world’s sins — to stand at the intersection of accountability and powerlessness.

It’s the old story replayed: she is blamed for what she didn’t create, denied the tools to change it, and then accused of not fixing it fast enough.
It is a familiar cruelty dressed as critique.

Because when a Black woman holds power, she becomes the stand-in for every fear of female authority, every unease with Black autonomy, every unspoken rule that says she should only serve, not lead.

And yet — she rises anyway.
Because she knows that even when the world hands her its chaos, her strength is not the cause of the fire.
It is the reason we still have light.

2️⃣ Because Misogyny and Racism Are Working in Tandem

When powerful women — especially Black women — rise, the world rushes to turn them into symbols instead of human beings.
And when she refuses to bow, they make her the scapegoat.

They strip her complexity and call it critique.
They twist her strength into threat.
They study her tone, her face, her choices — anything to pull her back down to where obedience lives.

Those who never spoke a word against war, hunger, or injustice suddenly find their voices when a woman stands tall.
Because it was never about policy.
Never about principle.
It was always about control — about reminding her that power, in their eyes, was never meant to belong to her.

But she remembers who she comes from.
Women who bore fire in their throats and truth in their hands.
Women who learned that to rise in a world built to fear you is not arrogance — it is inheritance.

3️⃣ Because People Expect Black Women to Fix Everything, Even While Breaking Our Backs

Historically, when this nation — and the world — falls into crisis, people turn to Black labor, Black creativity, and Black emotional endurance.
They demand that we heal, lead, build, comfort, and perform miracles — while they undermine the very systems that sustain us.
We are less able to support domestic violence, sexual assault, and humanitarian causes because we have fewer resources and so many are drained from carrying everyone’s expectations.

4️⃣ Because Critics Are Practicing “All-or-Nothing” Thinking

Too many people today operate with impartial all-or-nothing thinking errors — believing that disagreement means dehumanization, or that if someone doesn’t act exactly as they wish, she’s automatically corrupt. (And still manage to entirely miss the truly corrupt.)
It’s not moral clarity; it’s emotional immaturity dressed up as righteousness.

5️⃣ Because Some People Refuse to Learn Civics

Understanding how American government actually works is not optional especially when you aspire to be an “activist”.
The Vice President does not make foreign policy. She cannot single-handedly end a war or start one.
Yet, those shouting the loudest often refuse to learn what her American constitutional role even is.

Meanwhile, there are people in this country who must learn the rules and language of their own culture, this culture right here,  +++++

6️⃣ Because We Have Not Recovered — as a Nation or a People

Puerto Rico still has not recovered from devastating storms. 
The CDC remains under pressure, and our national health is fragile.
People are exhausted, financially and emotionally.
When individuals who are already drained are attacked for not doing “enough” for others, it exposes a cruel truth: people still confuse exploitation with compassion.

7️⃣ Because Other Crises Are Conveniently Ignored

Sudan.
Ethiopia.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Myanmar.
Yemen.

Palestinians, Israelis, Haitians, Armenians — people all over the world suffer in ways that rarely make headlines.
Selective outrage isn’t justice; it’s performance.

8️⃣ Because The Loudest Voices Don’t Always Know the Most

Many shouting on the internet or in the streets don’t know how government decisions are made — and they will not listen to those who do.
They’re powered by billionaire owned algorithms, not understanding of our government policies, history, and listening to

people off social media who must suffer the consequences of this group project. For generations to come.

Sidebar:  Over the years, I’ve often been asked how I got started in this work. Yes, I have lived experience and an eternal flame of passion. BUT I spent time years learning and being teachable about the pain points of others. In college, I volunteered as a legal advocate in the courtroom with domestic violence victims while assisting the assistant Commonwealth’s attorney to get justice and safety.

 Meanwhile I was slowly working on getting my associate’s degree in legal assisting (finances to pay for school, transportation, health crises, and life in general had to come first though).

After graduation, a position came open in a small organization that was offering services to a large mostly upper middle class, white county. It was going to be the first in that area. I had volunteer experience working within the system for victims in the courtroom, and I had legal training from an American Bar Association approved community college and before that, a paralegal certificate. 

That’s how I got my first paid position as a court/victim advocate. Education and experience with family law, experience listening to victims, and assisting attorneys first. Even the volunteer position required training at the school of law. Learning. Listening. Teachable to this day. (I’m trying.)

I share that because many other people -men and women- often wonder how they can get on a path to help (I like to say serve) other Survivors. There are many on ramps, but that is mine. 

9️⃣ Because Black Women Carry a Different Kind of Wisdom

When Black women watch all this — the noise, the twisting, the projections — we recognize it immediately.
It’s the same performance we’ve seen our whole lives.

We’ve lived it in classrooms where our brilliance was called attitude.
In workplaces where our restraint was mistaken for permission.
In churches where we were told to serve but never to speak.
In homes where silence was survival.

So when Kamala Harris stands calm in the storm — when she refuses to let the chaos rewrite her spirit — we know exactly what that is.
That is not passivity.
That is discipline.
That is ancestral training.

It’s the composure you learn when your heartbeat has always been the drum beneath other people’s fear.
It’s the stillness that says: I see the game, and I refuse to play small. For you.

Black women know that calm.
We’ve used it to save our sanity, our wellness, and sometimes our very lives.
Because when the world keeps throwing its noise at you, peace itself becomes an act of rebellion.

🔟 Because She Represents What Terrifies People Most:

A Black woman in power.
Not as a symbol. Not as someone’s right hand. But as the one holding the pen, making the call, steering the moment.

And yes — let the record stand — it has not been women writing the blueprints of war and conquest.
For centuries, it was men who mapped the invasions, who named the enemies, who decided which bodies were expendable for glory.
That’s not accusation — it’s history carved into every battlefield, every treaty, every unmarked grave.

So when a Black woman steps into that same arena, the discomfort is palpable.
Because her very presence disrupts the ancient order — the one where men command and women clean up the ruin.

She is not the author of this chaos.
She is the interruption.
The shift.
The proof that power does not have to come with destruction.

✨ The Bigger Truth

Kamala Harris’s critics may believe they are diminishing her — but all they’re really doing is pulling back the curtain on this nation’s unfinished business with race, womanhood, power, and responsibility.

Every insult aimed her way reveals something older and uglier than politics. It exposes how deeply this country still resents a Black woman who refuses to shrink.

And the more she’s attacked, the more familiar she becomes to those of us who know what it is to walk through fire while being told to smile.
We recognize that posture — that calm that isn’t submission, but strategy.
That grace that isn’t for show, but for survival.

She isn’t becoming less relatable.
She’s becoming the mirror — the one this country has spent centuries avoiding.
When they try to tear her down, they only make her reflection sharper.

Shirley Chisholm

“Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers – a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“At present, our country needs women’s idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“Health is a human right, not a privilege to be purchased.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“Laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws – to perpetuate injustice through inaction.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“Women must become revolutionary. This cannot be evolution but revolution.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“As things are now, no one can tell to whom members of Congress are responsible, except that it does not often appear to be to the people. Everyone else is represented in Washington by a rich and powerful lobby, it seems. But there is no lobby for the people.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl.'” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time… its idea of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint a commission.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers – a great pity, on both counts.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“Of my two `handicaps,’ being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

“One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she’s probably a lesbian.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

So not much has changed but the numbers on the calendar.