(Maybe) It’s high time for the Kamala Harris’ to not be surprising us

“... she had a keen sense of argumentation..”

This has been said about Kamala Harris from the 1980s, right when she was at Howard University, one of USA’s historically black colleges.

Fearlessness, wit and humour is what gets her through. So many news reports are bringing her grit into the picture too.

I’d just like to say that - being a colored woman anywhere in the world today requires grit anyway - it’s fundamental.

Vice President - Elect Harris identifies herself as an American. It’s the media that’s bringing in the other labels - South Asian, Black, Jamaican, woman, woman of color, wears sneakers with pant suits and such. Kamala wears all those identities with elan and even better she doesn’t shy away from giving it back.

Last October she had a Twitter exchange with Donald Trump Jr and here’s how it went. 

But enough is being already said about Ms Harris by the tabloids and I will leave it to that. For me, a woman of color, in a country and profession where decidedly I am a minority, her victory has given me a boost. Not that women or minority leaders haven’t gone ahead and done it before. 

A couple of weeks ago, Nanaia Mahuta was appointed New Zealand’s first female Foreign Minister.

Jacinda Ardern, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Septima Poinsette Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker - have all done this, maybe more, just not had the stage that had this big an audience. But for any revolution to have come about where women leaders are concerned, it has taken 25 years at least for the next generation of women to be inspired and take stage for it. 

Ms. Harris is the first and the next two decades will see a flood of women open their possibilities to include politics, policies, public speaking, having an opinion, being a cop, managing three or more racial/ gender identities and such.

And of course they will be looked to as mothers, wives, caregivers, providers, lovers, women, sisters and daughters. 

For women having the stage today, it is important to understand what we can do as women in a position of power to ensure that the next generation of leaders doesn’t take another 25 years. 

Build context.

If you don’t know how you got here, you don’t know the kind of legacy you are building from and building on. Of course you don’t need to tell your kids that at their age you were studying under street lights, but you do need to tell them what made street lights possible.

When you want to go vote, it is important to tell them that there was a time when women weren’t allowed to vote and that is why they should be cautious with this privilege. Getting your history from people who’ve lived those times is important to give you context. 

Articulation matters.

Now what’s the point of building that context if you aren’t able to articulate your opinion. It will never be a world where your opinion will always be accepted (and that’s a good thing), but to not have an opinion or to not express it, is a sheer waste of the progress you have made. Ms Harris is all humor and direct. She doesn’t waste her time with hints and innuendos. She calls it. 

Remain in conversation.

When you do chance upon an opinion that is different from yours - it is the most important thing in the world to remain in conversation. Conversation that builds on the heart of the matter, not on the mind/ language/ ethnicity of the speaker. 

As women, as minority leaders who are witnessing a changing world, let’s raise our daughters and sons to be all of that.

We should never have to say again that Mr. Biden is the only President to have addressed transgender folks in his speech or that Ms. Harris is the 1st woman Vice President or that Ms. Ardern was a nursing mother while dealing with a terrorist attack of vicious proportions.

We shouldn’t have to define the subject in the sentence. And we can start that journey today.