Candidate Kamala Harris hasn’t sat
for interviews.
I don’t blame her.
8/19/2024 5:30 a.m. EDT
Since becoming the presumptive Democratic candidate for
president, Vice President Kamala Harris has
done myriad public appearances and given speeches but has not, as of this
writing, talked to journalists outside a brief session on the tarmac before a
flight.
I’m a journalist and have been for more than half my life.
And you know what? I don’t blame her one bit.
Because of her refusal to sit for an interview with any
print or broadcast media, Harris has been the target of a lot of indignant
insistence that she change her mind — that she’s not giving the
American public answers they deserve. Critics say she’s subverting
an expected system that all other elected officials have gone through. They say
she’s hiding behind a wall of hype and “irrational exuberance” that
is proof she lacks the toughness to hold the office she seeks.
Be ever so real, y’all. You know that quote, “Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”? It would
be insane to subject yourself to unfettered questions by an industry that
doesn’t seem to know how to handle interviews with true journalistic integrity
and practices. Why beat your head against a wall you know is made of brick
and disinformation?
Harris has seen a media landscape that arguably legitimized
soon-to-be-President Donald Trump as a normal candidate when he was sowing
seeds of unrest, writing about him agreeing to accept the 2016 election results, “if
I win,” and then denying those results in 2020 with not an nth
of the absolute pushback and condemnation it deserved. She saw, as we all did,
major outlets referring to obvious racist attacks by the current Republican
nominee and others as “racially tinged” and to blatant bloody lies as “falsehoods” and
“misstatements.”
The vice president recently approached the press gaggle
with a deliberately direct “Whatcha got?” That is the same thing my late daddy
used to ask me point-blank when I’d been calling and calling and he knew I
wanted something. The reporters had been clamoring for
this. And their response? A bunch of requests for a response to crazy stuff
Trump said about her.
This is the same industry that initially wrote presidential
fanfic pondering replacement
candidates that weren’t Harris. Then, when President Joe Biden
stepped down from the race and named her as his chosen successor, they compiled
panels ruminating on Trump’s assertions about her racial identity. Fox News has
gone on the attack about her every day, but she’s being called a coward for not
agreeing to a debate on that network in front of an arena of opposing fans.
Yeah, no. She is not, as we say in my culture, Boo Boo the Fool,
nor is she, as she’s stated, falling for the okey-doke. Would you rush to sit
down to withstand more of that foolishness? I would not. Despite the
protestations of several writers from traditional media absolutely aghast at
her avoidance of them, the truth is that Kamala Harris doesn’t need them.
Just as Trump has flocked to friendly outlets like Fox and
a live conversation on X with app owner Elon Musk (or what Harris’ team
referred to as “whatever that was”),
Harris has done speeches at a rally in North Carolina and last week in Prince George’s County,
and she has her savvy and very online comms team to get her message out. It’s
smart, because most outlets have proven they don’t know how to approach her.
The vice president has expressed interest in setting
something up, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she sidesteps your Dana Bashes and
Kristen Welkers and does something inventive. If I were her, I’d talk
to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who has himself been
critical of media colleagues, including his own network.
Maybe she should completely pivot and do something fun like
“Hot Ones,” where she
can answer policy questions while eating spicy wings. Talk to Teen Vogue. Do
podcasts. Hang out with “The Real Housewives of Potomac.”
I know these sound like lightweight options, but are any of these suggestions
less weighty than Harris’ opponent, who bleats lies and racism on his own app,
or his approved media partners who go on about Harris’ laugh, dating history
and heritage? It’s all a circus. I say make your own big top.
And if madam vice president decides to talk to the
traditional media, be it the New York Times or CNN, I think she should only do
so with interviewers who have proven themselves to have cultural competency
about race, gender, historically Black colleges and universities, the Divine 9 Greek system,
step parenting and being a baddie in the 1990s. I’m not saying it has to be a
friendly person like Trump seeks, but it does have to be someone who respects
Harris enough as a candidate to do research and not spend the whole time asking
gotcha questions about her opponent’s lies. Heck, I’ll do it! I know this is a
long shot, but at least I know what okey-doke means.
I am excited for Harris’ future media choices because they
are sure to be unprecedented, just like her candidacy. And it’s going to be on
her terms. Everyone gets to set theirs, after all.