#WeNeedToTalk: Kamala Harris
We Didn’t Realize What We Had.
Last night, we all watched with bated breath as Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the Emerge Gala. I was honored to be invited to attend in person, and although I couldn’t make it on such short notice, I still watched her speak from home in awe.
My PERSIST sister, the President and CEO of Emerge, A’shanti Gholar introduced the Vice President and as she took the stage, poised and powerful, I was hit with a wave of emotion. I toggled between sadness and joy because I remembered just how much she gave us in such a short amount of time. How she carried the weight of history on her shoulders with grace and resolve. How she never wavered, even when people—often for no reason other than their own discomfort with the thought of having a Black woman in power, chose to hate her, diminish her, and erase her.
But the truth is: Kamala Harris would’ve been a president for everyone. Even those who spewed vitriol and projected their fear onto her brilliance. She would have led with compassion, with justice, and with an unwavering belief in what this country could be. Everything she said during her campaign, and everything she continues to say now, was and is right. We just weren’t ready to listen.
And that says more about us than it does about her.
The United States has always struggled to look itself in the mirror. To sit with its deep-rooted racism. Its deeply ingrained misogyny. And Kamala Harris—Black, South Asian, brilliant, accomplished, unshakable—represented the reckoning we’ve been avoiding. She was everything this country said it wanted, and when we finally had the chance to choose her, to trust her, to shift the narrative—we blew it.
Because the truth is, we are still far too beholden to a dying system. A system held tightly in the grip of elderly white men who continue to dominate our political landscape and shape the choices available to us. Their fear of losing control has convinced entirely too many people that progress is dangerous, when in fact, clinging to the past is what’s destroying us. That fear, that control, that inability to make space for new leadership—it’s causing this country to self-combust.
And now, here we are. In hell. Watching rights disappear, watching hate become policy, watching the worst of humanity rise to the top while so many of us feel powerless.
But last night reminded me: we’re not powerless.
Kamala Harris showed us what courage looks like. She showed us what it means to keep showing up, to keep speaking truth, to keep believing that something better is possible—even when the world doesn’t want to hear it. She reminds us that we can’t wait for permission to change things. We have to fight. Claw our way out of this mess. Name what’s broken. And stop giving power to people who’ve done nothing to earn our trust.
We had an opportunity to put our trust in someone who was ready to lead all of us, and we didn’t take it. But we can learn from that mistake. We must.
Kamala Harris is still here. Still fighting. Still showing up for a country that doesn’t always show up for her. And we need to start doing the same—for her, for each other, for the future we still have the power to build.
Because next time, we can’t get it wrong. We simply can’t afford to.
Kamala is truly amazing, and we all were and are better because she uses her voice for justice. My only comment in response to the post is to question the "WE"-when you say "We didn't realize what we had." I am not part of we, nor are you. We are more than clear about what we had. It's those who did NOT recognize the gift that she offered, who didn't get or read the memo. I bet they're paying attention now and are likely living with regret. And still.....we fight on.
I have never been so involved, so interested, so engaged in the process as I was with Kamala Harris. I went into deep depression when she lost. I cried watching her speak at Emerge. This country lost big.