The condescension of the left, or Jill’s Black woman problem

I have spent the last 16 years as the executive director of several different non-profit organizations. For those not well-versed in the nonprofit world, my position is equivalent to the role of CEO in the for-profit sector. Given that less than 33% of non-profits in the United States are led by BIPOC folks, with less than 20% of those leaders identifying as Black, I am often the only Black person—woman—in the room.

A common theme that has repeatedly come up for me in the last 16 years is being told there are issues with my communication style. Given that I moonlight as a writer and public speaker, as well as trainer, it has always struck me as curious when I have heard board members speak about my communication style. After an internal implosion between myself and my now-former board of directors required external consultants to mend the riff, it was pointed out that the “issues” with my communication style weren’t really the issue. It was the unexamined racism that white folks were holding that was leading to them struggling with my authority as the leader of the organization.

For those not familiar with my work, I am the director of a 56-year-old anti-racism organization based in Boston. An anti-racism organization with an internal racism issue between their CEO and the then-predominantly white board. We eventually worked through different cultural communication styles, including me acknowledging that my directness at times can be unnerving for white people, but ultimately that iteration of the board stepped off and we have a board that is more diverse and versed in the directness of Black women.

I bring this up because ever since it was announced that Kamala Harris was running, it has been interesting to watch people—primarily white people—critique her communication style. In the last two months, I have seen people say that she isn’t clear when she speaks, or she speaks in a “word salad,” or comment on her code switching—at times even accusing her of faking a Black accent. I have seen people comment on her abilities and even her intelligence. I have even seen people critique her very Black-auntie-like laugh as a sign that she is unhinged.

While it is easy to brush most of the critiques off as right-wing nonsense, the fact is that some of the critiques are not from the right. Some of the criticism is from folks who one would expect to have some semblance of analysis around race.

There is no doubt that this is a most unusual election season, with the ongoing genocide in Gaza being first and foremost in the minds of many, especially more left-leaning voters. To say passions and tensions are running high would be an understatement. For millions of Americans, as I have written before, they want a ceasefire and arms embargo and without those things, they are not going to support Harris—which is absolutely their right.

However, for many who hold this view, I will just say there is some unchecked anti-Blackness that is oozing out.

Look, I understand that for many Harris’s race and gender doesn’t factor into their voting decisions but in this country—where racism and oppression were the literal building blocks of this country—to expect the first Black woman to possibly have a chance at the Oval Office to be anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and to essentially turn the status quo upside down is not realistic. Have you seen this country?

Kamala Harris is exactly the kind of Black woman to have a shot at the Oval; she is the establishment, but she is also more well-qualified than many of our candidates in recent years. The woman was an attorney general in our most populous state, she served in the U.S. Senate, and she has spent 3.5 years as a vice president.

In Black American culture, many of us were raised with the adage that you have to be twice as good as a white person to get ahead. Frankly, whether you like Harris or not, she is most certainly the most experienced of the candidates, including the orange wanna-be dictator who wants to return to the Oval Office.

I was thinking of all of this today, after coming across an exchange between Green Party candidate Jill Stein and OG blogger, author, and speaker Luvvie. Luvvie posted a reel on Instagram stating that she was concerned about a white content creator with a large platform who was telling folks to vote for Stein—a creator who wasn’t thinking about the reality of what a Stein vote means for marginalized people in the United States.

Under the current electoral college system, a vote for Stein, while good for the conscience of many, it isn’t going to lead to Stein in office. Luvvie also stated, as many of us have, that Jill Stein doesn’t seem much into building the long-term coalitions that might give the Green Party real momentum. She pops out every four years, sounds good, loses, and returns in another four years. She is like that ex-partner whom you love but you know ain’t shit. Talks a good game, gets you hyped, fails, slinks away, pops back up, you try again, and you keep repeating the cycle until you realize that you have had enough.

Well, Stein responded to Luvvie and honestly, it was a bit condescending, as she stated that Harris is nothing more than a capitalist—blah blah blah. The thing is, Stein as of late has been popping up in Black spaces and when she does, she has an almost-patronizing tone when speaking to Black women.

 A few weeks ago, she appeared on a popular Black show, “The Breakfast Club,” where it came out that she didn’t know exactly how many members there were in the House of Representatives.

I don’t expect the average Joe at the bar to know how many members there are in the House of Representatives, but one would think that a candidate for the presidency who says they are serious would know that answer.

In that moment, Stein demonstrated to me just how unserious she is. It also is a reminder that aside from one win in 2005, for a local town position, she has never won an election—including her attempts to run for governor of Massachusetts. In fact, if Jill Stein were not a white woman who also happens to be a physician with a Harvard pedigree—and worth a few million—her aspirations would be laughable. Except that the way race works in our country, she is given just enough consideration and attention to be problematic.

You can hate on Kamala Harris all you want, but when you denigrate her (especially if you’re lifting up Stein), you’re walking a fine line, because in this country we are never divorced from our identity. So you need to make very sure you’re not engaging in anti-Blackness.

Unfortunately, too many on the left, despite their academic knowledge of white supremacy, often engage in racist language or behavior. In the case of the current Green Party, failing to hear marginalized people’s real concerns about the prospect of a second Trump term is a form of white myopia. If you know you can’t win now—and the Green Party cannot—and that a vote for you is to a certain extent a vote for a man hell-bent on tearing up any remaining protections for marginalized people in this country, that’s not ally, accomplice or co-collaborator behavior. Especially when you have enough of a net worth to pull up stakes and flee if things get real bad.

One of the many things that prevents me from supporting folks like Stein is that I find people of her ilk to be condescending on matters of race and reality. They speak to people, particularly Black people, as if we are stupid and have no idea of what’s at stake. Sort of like my former long-term patron on Patreon who responded to me announcing that I was supporting Kamala Harris by calling me a Democratic Party genocide supporter. Of course, I don’t support genocide—very few of us do—but I am a person who holds a marginalized identity, and I fail to see how a second Trump term is helpful to the folks of Gaza or people here in the United States.

Despite the rallying cries on social media that there is no discernible difference between Harris or Trump, I strongly doubt that a Harris term would lead to more conservative justices on the Supreme Court who are itching to take away more hard-won rights. Or that she will create a militarized environment where even our right to protest is at risk. Do I think she needs to push Netanyahu for a ceasefire? Absolutely, but she is also not the person with the authority to do that at this moment; that’s her boss’s call.

The work this country needs is beyond the purview of one person magically fixing it; it is a collective effort at all levels. As for Stein, rather than popping up in Black media spaces and talking to us like we are fucking idiots while weaponizing your social justice vocabulary, perhaps you should do more work to build a multi-state coalition that wins localized power and build from there, as well as pushing for ranked-choice voting that would actually allow people to vote for third-party candidates while still being able to lock in a safe second choice.

I don’t know, but I think some Green Party mayors and governors would be an excellent pathway to eventually a Green Party president. At 74, Jill should be old enough to straddle reality with hope and build from there.

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