Why, As a Black Woman, I Will Not Be Voting for Kamala Harris

From Harriet Tubman to Shirley Chisholm, Our Legacy is Resistance

Harriet Tubman escaped. She could have taken the win, living out her life in freedom and peace. But she understood that her freedom wasn’t enough. She risked it all, over and over again, leading 13 perilous missions back to the South, where she was a wanted woman with a bounty on her head. And she didn’t stop there—during the Civil War, Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed military raid, freeing over 700 enslaved people. And still, it wasn’t enough. After the war, she fought for women’s suffrage, and eventually dedicated her home as a sanctuary for elderly, formerly enslaved people. Illiterate and the victim of a brutal head injury that caused her lifelong pain, Tubman never allowed her circumstances to become an excuse. If there was no way, she made one.

Mary Church Terrell was born in 1863 to parents who were once enslaved. She became among the first Black women in the country to earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, graduating from Oberlin College. But despite her privilege—growing up in a wealthy family—Terrell didn’t rest on personal success. She chose instead to fight for collective progress, co-founding the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), with the motto: “Lifting as we climb.” For Terrell, education wasn’t just for her personal gain; it was the foundation for her advocacy. She dedicated her life to fighting against Jim Crow segregation, disenfranchisement, and the systematic exclusion of Black women from the suffrage movement. While many chose silence, she forced her way into spaces that never invited her, demanding equality and justice.

Then, there’s Shirley Chisholm—another warrior who built on the legacies of Tubman, Terrell, and countless others. In 1968, Chisholm shattered multiple ceilings as the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and just four years later, she became the first Black woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her slogan, “Unbought and Unbossed,” captured her refusal to trade integrity for political survival. Chisholm was fearless, using her platform to challenge the establishment on everything from Vietnam to welfare reform. She did not seek approval from white power brokers; her loyalty was to the communities she served—Black, poor, and marginalized Americans who needed someone to speak for them. Chisholm’s legacy was about independence and a fierce, unapologetic commitment to justice.

These women—Tubman, Terrell, Chisholm—shared a vision rooted not in individual ambition, but in the collective liberation of Black people. Each could have chosen comfort, or at least compromise, to secure her own status. But they refused. They chose to sacrifice personal comfort to elevate others, to build a legacy of service, and to resist every structure designed to keep them in place.

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has spent her career stepping on Black and brown bodies as she climbed her way to power. From her tenure as San Francisco’s District Attorney and California’s Attorney General, to her unconditional support for Israel’s genocide to pushing predatory loans instead of jobs, Harris repeatedly chose to align herself with systems that disproportionately harm Black and brown communities. Her record is filled with decisions that, rather than protecting the most vulnerable, seem designed to curry favor with white, elite political structures. 

Here are the top reasons she will not be getting my vote…

1. Harris’s Record: Throwing Us Under the Bus

The Anti-Truancy Campaign: Criminalizing Poverty

One of the clearest examples of Harris prioritizing optics over justice is her much-touted "anti-truancy" initiative during her time as District Attorney of San Francisco. Harris aggressively pushed for a law that threatened to prosecute and imprison parents if their children were chronically absent from school. In her own words, she was “getting tough” on the root causes of crime, framing truancy as the first step in a pipeline that would inevitably lead children to delinquency and criminality.

But critics saw the initiative for what it was: a policy that disproportionately targeted low-income Black and brown families. These weren’t necessarily neglectful parents—they were parents often overwhelmed by systemic poverty, housing instability, or jobs that made it impossible to consistently supervise their children. Instead of addressing the root causes of truancy—underfunded schools, lack of social services, or transportation barriers—Harris chose to criminalize the parents of children who already faced educational inequities.

One mother from Oakland, whose case became a flashpoint for activists, expressed the frustration of many parents affected by Harris's truancy policies. She described how the system was more focused on blaming parents for their children's absences than addressing the root causes. Nobody was asking why they were missing school. Nobody was asking why they couldn’t afford childcare or why they didn’t have transportation. They just wanted someone to blame.

This initiative, like so many of Harris’s policies, took a punitive approach rather than a restorative one. It criminalized the symptoms of poverty without addressing the structural forces that create and perpetuate poverty in the first place.

Championing Mass Incarceration

Harris’s tough-on-crime posture as District Attorney was amplified when she became California’s Attorney General. Despite the progressive veneer she adopted later, Harris consistently failed to challenge the state’s carceral system. One of the most glaring examples of this was her defense of California’s "three strikes" law, a draconian statute that imposed life sentences for individuals convicted of a third felony, regardless of its severity. This law disproportionately affected Black and Latino people, pushing many into life sentences for nonviolent crimes. Harris, however, did not challenge it; she aligned herself with the status quo that filled California’s prisons with Black and brown bodies.

In 2014, during a federal mandate to reduce overcrowding in California’s prisons, Harris’s office made a shocking argument: prisoners should not be released because the state needed their labor. The argument, defending what amounted to modern-day indentured servitude, sparked national outrage. At the time many observers criticized Kamala Harris as having made her career off the backs of poor Black and brown people, sending them to prison and then keeping them there when it was convenient.

Her office’s position revealed how deeply entangled the prison system was with the state's reliance on cheap, exploitative labor. The fact that Harris allowed her office to argue that prison labor was more important than the rehabilitation or humanity of incarcerated people—a population disproportionately made up of Black and Latino men—was an unforgivable betrayal for many.

Refusing to Tackle Police Misconduct

Perhaps the most damning part of Harris’s record is her refusal to challenge police violence and misconduct during her time as Attorney General. As public outcry for accountability in cases of police brutality grew, Harris continuously resisted calls for reform. She did not support mandatory statewide body cameras for police officers, and she consistently refused to independently investigate officer-involved shootings—even as police killed unarmed Black men in her own backyard.

In 2015, San Francisco police officers killed Mario Woods, a young Black man shot 21 times in broad daylight. The killing sparked outrage and led to widespread protests, with demands for Harris to open an independent investigation into the case. But she remained silent, leaving the investigation in the hands of local law enforcement—the same institution responsible for Woods's death. His mother, Gwen Woods, described her frustration: “Kamala didn’t speak up. And she should have.” Harris's failure to act was criticized by many activists who felt that, time and again, she chose political safety over justice.

Harris’s record is a stark contrast to the legacy of resistance embodied by women like Tubman, Terrell, and Chisholm. These foremothers sacrificed comfort, wealth, and personal gain to fight for our collective liberation. They lifted as they climbed. Whereas, Harris’s path to power has been marked by calculated decisions that upheld the very systems of oppression that harmed the communities who looked to her for justice.

2. Harris is the Ultimate “Black Friend.” That’s Not Good for Black and Brown People.

Being a good “Black friend” means that you allow your Black skin to function in service of white supremacy. The expectation is clear: do not make Blackness more than a superficial, skin deep issue. You know your place and in order to maintain it, you remain silent on all the many injustices you may face: from not being able to catch a cab to lacking access to wealth. You agree to silence for access - that’s the deal. It’s a Faustian bargain where to maintain proximity to power in white elite circles, you align with white interests, knowing that you’ll be the only one through the door, distinguishing yourself from Black folks that white folks believe are lower and lesser than them, and you. Of course, being a “Black friend” always comes at a cost—the cost of other Black people, the cost of solidarity with marginalized communities, and the cost of your own humanity and dignity.

Kamala Harris fills this role perfectly, as a psychological hostage held by the demands of white supremacy. Her Black-in-skin-only identity is her ticket into white spaces, but also the chain that keeps her tethered to their interests. The moment a Black friend asserts their allegiance with other Black and brown people, pushing back on white supremacist ideas or questioning the system that maintains white dominance—they will most definitely lose their seat at the table. It’s a constant balancing act, where you have to remain within respectable lines. Harris’s career is defined by this dynamic: the tighter she’s held onto power, the further she’s drifted from her sense of self, reality, and shared humanity.

We saw this with Barack Obama’s presidency. In many ways Obama deepened this kind of demand for assimilation. When Obama was elected, I told friends, “Mark my words—a Black president will be the worst thing for Black people.” That statement wasn’t about his intentions or charisma, but about how the system would force him to throw Black interests under the bus and use his Black skin as a shield to deflect from its ongoing failures.

The Numbers Tell the Story: Obama’s Legacy for Black and Brown Communities

Under Obama’s presidency, systemic inequalities didn’t improve for Black or brown communities—they actually worsened. The racial wealth gap expanded, the economy stagnated for working-class people of color, and the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis left many behind. The numbers are striking:

• Wealth Gap: By the end of Obama’s presidency, the median wealth of white households was nearly ten times that of Black households, and eight times that of Hispanic households. Black homeownership rates dropped from 47% in 2004 to 41% by 2016, largely due to the predatory subprime loans that targeted Black families and resulted in higher foreclosure rates - which he never sought to remedy.

• Health Disparities: The Affordable Care Act expanded health coverage, but racial health disparities persisted. Black women remained three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than white women, and life expectancy gaps between Black and white Americans remained as wide as ever. In fact, under Obama, the health gap for mental health and access to adequate care among Black and brown communities only marginally improved.

• Unemployment and Job Quality: Even as national unemployment rates improved, Black workers faced persistent double-digit unemployment during much of Obama’s presidency, reaching 16% in 2010, compared to just 9% for white Americans. For Latino workers, the recovery meant taking lower-wage jobs without benefits, with many forced into the informal labor market where they were vulnerable to exploitation.

Bottomline: a Black presidency didn’t produce substantive economic change for Black, brown, or poor people—it simply provided a cultural veneer that things were improving. Yes, we gained cultural visibility: Black celebrities were celebrated, hip hop became mainstream, and white boys in suburbia learned to recite trap lyrics. But this was a distraction. Visibility does not equal power, and cultural representation has done nothing to address the structural inequalities that remained firmly in place. Black and brown people were essentially told to be grateful for symbolism while material conditions worsened.

The Price of Friendship and Silence

This brings us back to Harris—the latest “Black friend” in white power circles. To maintain her access to elite spaces, Harris has no choice but to distance herself from the very communities looking to her for hope. She’s secretly traded solidarity for silence, and in doing so, she’s upheld a system that oppresses Black, brown, and Indigenous people across the globe. The price of admission into these white spaces is denying the full reality of Black and brown experiences, and she’s paid it.

Just as Obama’s presidency provided cover for the deepening inequalities of capitalism and white supremacy, Harris has used her identity as both a shield and a tool for advancing a system that harms Black and brown people. 

From Black and Brown Communities to Upholding a Global System of Exploitation

The role of the “Black friend” in white power structures doesn’t just harm Black Americans—it upholds a global system of exploitation. Palestinians, Indigenous peoples, Latinx communities, and other marginalized groups across the world are all affected by the same forces of white supremacy that utilize token representation to maintain their legitimacy. When Harris, as Vice President, offers her support for systems that oppress others—whether it’s defending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine or remaining silent on Indigenous land rights—she is doing what is expected of the “Black friend”: providing cover for oppression, so long as her proximity to power remains intact.

The trap of being the “Black friend” is that it encourages you to believe that individual success is a form of collective progress. But Harris’s rise, like Obama’s, doesn’t challenge the systems of inequality; it reinforces them. The wealth gap, the health gap, and the job gap have all widened, not just for Black people, but for all marginalized communities living under the weight of white supremacy. And yet, we are told to celebrate her as a symbol of progress. I guess the question is: progress for whom?

3. "I'm Speaking." Ok, But Maybe You Should Be Listening.

Kamala Harris loves to invoke her now-famous line: “I’m speaking.” But perhaps it’s time she did less speaking and more listening—because we’re no longer paying attention to someone who has lied so many times to maintain her place within white supremacy’s halls of power.

As the ultimate Black friend, Harris has completely disconnected herself from the legacy of Black women whose shoulders she stands on—women who understood resistance, who fought against oppression in all its forms. And so we shouldn’t be too surprised that Harris is willing to lie repeatedly to maintain her political position. After all, her career has shown that proximity to power is her true allegiance, and when it comes to Israel and Palestine, her rhetoric echoes the most violent, neocolonial lies.

Lie #1: “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

This is perhaps one of the most insidious lies Harris perpetuates, parroting the Zionist narrative that Israel’s military actions are justified under the guise of “self-defense.” Yet under international law, an occupying force can never have the right to “defend itself” against the people it is colonizing and oppressing. Think about this clearly. You have a David and Goliath situation where children are taken hostage by Israel for throwing rocks at tanks. The duty of the occupier is one of care, making sure that the occupied population is safe and secure. This is completely incompatible with the idea that Israel has any right of so-called “self defense.” This is well-established by the United Nations and countless human rights organizations. The notion of self-defense simply does not apply to any occupying force, muchless one engaged in settler-colonial expansion at the expense of an indigenous population.

What Harris conveniently elides is that Israel is a settler-colonial state, meaning that its goal is to steal land occupied by an indigenous population by enforcing a brutal apartheid regime against Palestinians. The daily massacres in Gaza are not self-defense. They are blatantly a genocidal campaign designed to eradicate Palestinian existence and resistance. In aligning herself with this rhetoric, Harris is lying to the public—and ensuring the erasure of Palestinian lives. This is undeniable complicity with genocide.

The numbers speak for themselves. According to The Lancet, nearly 200,000 Palestinians have been killed due to the “war,” including well over 40,000 civilians bombed to death, eviscerated. Another 60,000 people have starved to death due to the near total siege imposed on Gaza. More than 17,000 children have lost limbs - many who would never have lost the limb with the same injury were it not for Israel’s refusal to allow humanitarian medical supplies into the “war” zone and their constant bombing of hospitals. There is no modern conflict where more children have been killed. There is no modern conflict where more journalists have been executed. The UN estimates that over half of Gaza's population—around 1.1 million people—has been displaced, with nowhere to seek safety as Israel continues its bombing campaign on hospitals, schools, refugee camps and tent cities.

Harris’s unwavering support for these atrocities is not only ideological—it’s financial. Her allegiance to AIPAC is well-documented. In 2017, she addressed the AIPAC policy conference, where she proudly declared that her support for Israel’s military actions is “non-negotiable.” Since then, Harris has benefited from the generous financial backing of the Zionist lobby, becoming one of the top recipients of Zionist campaign funds in the Senate. Further, she is fully aware of and actively participating with the Zionist capture of our government. She has actively sold us out to one of the most racist ideologies to arise in contemporary history for the sake of maintaining power.

Lie #2: False Allegations of Systematic Rape

On the campaign trail and in public statements, Harris has repeated the false claim that Hamas systematically raped Israeli women during the October 7th attack. This claim, initially circulated by Israeli officials, was widely amplified in Western media, but there is no credible evidence to support it. Even major outlets like The New York Times have had to retract stories suggesting that systematic rape occurred, as no investigations have ever corroborated these claims.

Yet, despite the retractions and lack of evidence, Harris continues to repeat this lie. The lie persists because it serves a purpose: to dehumanize Palestinians, to cast them as irredeemable monsters, and to justify the overwhelming violence unleashed upon them. The use of rape as a propaganda tool is not new—it has been used in countless genocidal campaigns to rally public support for extreme military action. By repeating this falsehood, Harris is helping to build the overtly racist narrative that enables the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians.

Lie #3: Censoring Speech by Rewriting the First Amendment

Harris’s commitment to power also extends to her shocking lies about the First Amendment. Recently, she has been working to convince Americans that "hate speech” and “misinformation" are not protected forms of speech under the Constitution. This is a deliberate falsehood. In the United States, hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, and the courts have long upheld this, from Brandenburg v. Ohio to more recent rulings. But Harris, along with her VP candidate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are actively promoting the dangerous idea that the government should regulate what they define as “hate speech” or “misinformation.” The idea that the people decide the truth is fundamental to American democracy, and our democracy will be unrecognizable without it.

This is not just an issue of semantics. It’s a direct assault on free speech, and it’s deeply troubling because it sets a precedent for censorship, especially when it comes to criticism of Israel’s apartheid regime. Criticism of Israel is increasingly being labeled as “antisemitic hate speech” in an attempt to silence pro-Palestinian voices. This framing is not about protecting marginalized groups; it’s about controlling the narrative to maintain U.S. alignment with a racist Zionist expansion and to stifle any opposition to settler-colonialism.

According to a recent UN report, the consequences of this erosion of free speech are already being felt. Palestinian solidarity activists, journalists, and even scholars are facing increasing repression in both the U.S. and Europe. Academics have lost their jobs, students have been blacklisted, and activists have been targeted under the guise of “fighting antisemitism.” Harris’s stance on regulating speech is not about protecting public discourse—it’s about preserving power by silencing dissent.

Bought and Bossed: Harris’s Alliance with AIPAC

These lies of complicity are the direct result of Harris’s coldly calculated alignment with the Zionist lobby. From advocating for the $3.8 billion annual military aid package to blocking congressional efforts to condition aid on Israel’s adherence to human rights standards, Harris has demonstrated that her commitment to Israel is indeed “non-negotiable.” This is a far cry from the legacy of “Unbought and Unbossed.” Chisholm refused to sell out her principles or her people for political gain, while Harris has allowed herself to be both bought and bossed by one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, no matter the human cost.

4. She’s at It Again: Pushing Predatory Loans on Black Folk

Despite Kamala Harris’s clear alignment with white supremacy, political analysts seem baffled by her waning support among Black voters. Some estimate that Harris is poised to receive the smallest percentage of the Black vote of any Democratic candidate in recent history​. Obama even went so far as to chide Black men, implying that misogyny plays a role in their rejection of Harris, sidestepping the deeper issues of her actual policies.

In response to this crisis of support, Harris recently rolled out a plan for Black men, designed to court their votes with promises of economic opportunity. The centerpiece of this plan? $20,000 forgivable loans for Black men to start businesses. On the surface, this might seem like an attempt to address the economic inequality Black men face, but in reality, it’s a deeply inadequate, even predatory, solution. Twenty thousand dollars is simply not enough to start a viable business, let alone one that can thrive and grow.

Predatory Loans Disguised as Empowerment

This loan program is not only insufficient but harmful. Twenty thousand dollars won’t even cover the initial costs of most scalable businesses, and for many, it’s barely enough to scrape by as self-employed. The average Black-owned business requires at least $100,000 in startup capital to have a real chance of success, according to a 2021 Federal Reserve report. It’s not like these numbers are a secret. The paltry sum Harris is offering only sets Black men up for failure—unable to build sustainable businesses, they will likely be trapped in a cycle of debt, widening the wealth gap instead of closing it.

And this is not the first time Harris has peddled predatory loans to the Black community. She has promoted similar schemes to Black women, emphasizing the rise in Black female entrepreneurship;  22% of Black women are small business owners. But behind this headline lies a stark reality: 97% of these businesses are self-employed ventures, not scalable, wealth-building companies. The idea of "Black girl magic" is being weaponized to gloss over the fact that almost all of these businesses are operating without employees, run by owners with no safety net, who are undercapitalized, trapped in gig work disguised as entrepreneurship. Harris’s loan plan for Black men is no different.

The Illusion of Job Creation

Harris’s reliance on self-employment is a political sleight of hand. Self-employment does not equal job security, economic stability, or wealth-building potential. In fact, most self-employed individuals, particularly Black men, face precarious income, lack of benefits, and little room for growth. These are not businesses in the traditional sense—the vast majority are solo operations with no employees, no significant revenue, and no real path to scaling up. Harris’s plan to promote “entrepreneurship” for Black men is just a way to inflate the administration’s job creation numbers, masking the harsh reality of a job market that still offers few good-paying opportunities to Black workers.

The failure of this approach is evident in data from previous economic recovery efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Black-owned businesses struggled to secure the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, receiving a fraction of the capital given to white-owned businesses. The systemic barriers that exist for Black entrepreneurs—lack of access to capital, networks, and financial support—remain firmly in place. Harris’s $20,000 loan does nothing to dismantle these obstacles; it merely adds another layer of predatory lending to the system.

Psychological Toll on Black Men

Beyond the material limitations of the loan program, there’s a psychological impact on Black men who take out these loans only to find themselves unable to succeed. Many will internalize the failure, not realizing they were scammed, and that their lack of success was the product of systemic undercapitalization, but as a personal shortcoming. This only contributes to the disillusionment and disenfranchisement of Black men, who justifiably feel that the political system does not serve their interests.

Obama’s implication that Black men’s rejection of Harris stems from misogyny completely misses the point. It’s not a lack of respect for women that drives Black men’s disillusionment—it’s the sense that they are being betrayed and manipulated. Harris’s policies on criminal justice, her willingness to murder Palestinian children and civilians, her complicity in perpetuating economic inequalities, and her overall alignment with white supremacist interests all contribute to this feeling of alienation.

Lesser-Evilism is What Got Us Here

When Harriet Tubman risked her life and freedom to save others from the horrors of slavery, she showed us that our liberation is always bound to the liberation of others. Later, Fannie Lou Hamer expressed this truth when she said, "Nobody is free until we are all free." Mary Church Terrell embodied this by telling us that freedom can only come from "lifting as we climb." Shirley Chisholm taught us that integrity will always outweigh material success—that honor lies in being "unbought and unbossed." And how does Kamala Harris extend this legacy? Is she standing on the shoulders of these incredible Black women who paved the way, or is she stepping on the bodies of Black and brown people to achieve her personal goals?

Yet, we are told that we must vote for Harris because Trump is worse. We were told the same about Biden—vote out of fear, vote to stop Trump. And what did we get? A regime that plunged us into endless war, possibly nuclear war, and a government that lies to its people to obscure the most horrific acts humans can commit. We are funding and supporting a genocide; the victims aren’t just numbers—these are real human beings forced to carry the dismembered remains of their loved ones in plastic bags, these are children who have been maimed and burned alive by bombs we’ve paid for. This is what we were told to vote for in 2020, and this is what we’ll get again if we vote for Harris.

We’ve been convinced that nothing is worse than Trump, and in that fear, we’ve given away our power. Biden didn’t win through hope or vision—he won through censorship and control, concealing his nefarious acts by hiding them from public view. This is how authoritarianism takes root. It doesn’t belong to a “side,” it’s a cycle. "Lesser evilism" is how the cycle perpetuates itself. Every time we vote for the lesser evil, we reinforce that cycle. After 400 years of struggle, we can make it through another four.

We are asked to sacrifice our values, to ignore the suffering abroad, to accept war, genocide, censorship, and economic inequality as necessary evils. And our reward: seeing a Black face in a high place. I want to propose to you that if we don’t take the loss now, the future losses will be far greater. 

The argument that four more years of Trump is the worst-case scenario ignores the reality that rewarding the party that made us complicit in genocide, that destroyed the international human rights world order, that lied to us about jobs and economic growth, and that has fundamentally altered the culture of the first amendment may have far worse consequences than we could ever imagine. There will be no money for investment in our communities, no resources for better health, no real jobs—just more bombs, more lies, more censorship.

We can’t afford to keep playing a short-term game in a long-term struggle. The Democratic Party will never change if we keep giving them our vote without holding them accountable. Just like Tubman, Terrell, and Chisholm, we have to demand more. We must be willing to do the necessary work to build the power that will bring about real change. Yes, our votes are for survival, but our survival can only be found in our collective liberation.