The Counterpublic Papers vol. 4 no. 12

Last week on MLK Day, Kamala Harris announced her presidential candidacy.

I’ve already committed to voting for whoever the democratic party nominee is. I’ll do it holding my nose if I have to. I’ll do it even though Maryland’s vote might as well already be counted in the democratic column.

Two key words.

Harm reduction.

But with that said, Harris, along with Corey Booker and Joe Biden, is a candidate I’d hold my nose for, because her record on criminal justice is, well, horrible. Now one might argue that she was just doing her job—to that I’d say that we’ve instances of state attorney generals who don’t drill down on tough on crime stances, and at the very least I’d expect a state attorney general to make sure agents of the law actually followed that law. One might argue that she did what she had to to become senator, and to be in a position to run for President.

To that, I’d say, I’ve seen and heard that before. Strikes me as a bit too Clintonian for my tastes.

One could also say, well, Sanders voted for mass incarceration too.

And to that, I’d say yes. But Sanders as senator also voted for a range of policies that were beneficial to black and working class populations in general. Further, it wasn’t Sanders job. Harris did this all day every day for years until she became senator.

Harris went to the right school (Howard), as far as black folk are concerned. In fact she is an Alpha Chapter AKA. The world is small, she and I probably have the same people.

But we’re not talking about whether she’d be cool to hang out with, or work with, or work for.  We’re not talking about whether it’d be cool to have a President in the White House who’d paint it pink and green.

Here’s what we’re talking about.

During Baltimore’s last mayoral election we saw candidates move further to the left than I had ever seen. All of them. Smart takes on human rights, on living wage proposals, on drug legalization. The business leaders running for mayor supported these policies. The progressive politicians supported these policies. The centrist politicians supported these policies. Cathy Pugh was of them, supporting among other things a living wage proposal.

Then, after winning the election, Pugh vetoed it. In an interview she said she wasn’t holding a Bible when she said she supported it.

Politics is about compromise, I get that. But Pugh, running right after the Uprising, had no reason to go back on her word. There wouldn’t have been a corporate exodus. She wouldn’t have lost an election. She did a 180, because her primary supporters, her first supporters came from the FIRE sector. Corporate leaders. Developers.

Harris’ first support came from Wall Street. It’s hard for me to imagine a scenario in which she goes against their interests for the interests of the people she spent a lot of time locking up in California.

It doesn’t mean I won’t vote for her. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d vote for her before I voted for Booker. Probably before I voted for Biden. And it’d take me a lot less time to vote for her than it took me to vote for Clinton.

But I’d rather vote for someone who has been voting on the right side before it was fashionable to do so.

It looks like she’ll have her headquarters here in Baltimore. Should be interesting. Expect a lot more stories that emphasize her connections to black folk over her past policies.

…

So I had this discussion on Facebook..

(quick aside. i got invited to a bluegrass house concert in baltimore—yes you read that right—a couple of weeks ago. all of a sudden i started getting ads on Facebook for what looked like hi-tech money clips. because i thought for a quick second about getting one of those metallic wallets, I figured the ads were related. when i clicked on the ad, i found that i wasn’t being sold a money clip, i was being sold a guitar pic. and i was clueless…until i went to the concert and saw that exact clip on one of the duet’s guitar. Facebook read my google hangout texts. and no i didn’t do that 2008/2018 thing…it was too unwieldy, and then i found out it was likely an experiment at facial recognition over time. but if you’re asking, this is what i looked like ten years ago.)

One of my oldest friends in Baltimore asked me why I was throwing shade on a black woman. I know how to deal with that.

Another fb friend asked me about Sanders—I’d vote for either Sanders or Warren willingly, in fact would campaign for both—and his stance on racial justice.

I think Adolph Reed gets a lot wrong about black politics, but I think there’s one thing he’s right enough on that we need to take him seriously.

While there are issues—like police brutality—that require a race and class analysis (and a race and class politics) there are a range of issues that don’t require it. And while Sanders arguably sucked on police brutality, he was pretty strong otherwise.

Here’s what I wrote.

    The person I had this debate with didn’t respond. If we talk about an abstract “racial justice” and we stay in that space, then we miss all the ways concrete policies like free college tuition won’t just help black folk, but will likely help black folk disproportionately.

    ….

    Haven’t gotten on the tables in a long time. Here are a couple of mixes to tide you over.

    Be good. Or at the very least, be bad for good reasons.