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ABSTRACT
In his campaign for president, Joseph R. Biden emerged as a frontrunner after pledging to select a vice president who has a different identity than his own. As the most loyal demographic for the Democratic Party, choosing a Black woman as a nominee for vice president challenges previous understandings of presidentiality. Pressure to select a Black woman vice president also exposes how intersectionality can differ in political decision-making, as Kamala Harris's version of intersectionality stands out to Biden compared to others. This article examines two performative events: Kamala Harris’s election-night victory speech and Stacey Abrams’s non-concession concession speech, to understand why Harris’s brand of intersectionality, and not Abrams’s, resonated more with the Biden campaign. Representing two different forms of intersectionality, both speeches centralize race and gender, shifting how we understand the 2020 presidential election alongside a long tradition of racial exclusion. As we reflect on the implications of the previous presidency, remarks from both Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris remind us of the extent to which Black women have fought against a white supremacist system and how versions of intersectionality are not the same.
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Notes
1 Matt Stevens, “Joe Biden Commits to Selecting a Woman as Vice President,” New York Times, March 15, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/us/politics/joe-biden-female-vice-president.html.
2 “Black Women Leaders Letter to Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph Biden,” The Action Network April 24, 2020, https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/black-women-leaders-letter-to-support-black-women-for-vp/
3 Christina M. Greer, “African–American Candidates for the Presidency and the Foundation of Black Politics in the Twenty–First Century,” Politics, Groups, and Identities 4, no. 4 (2016): 644, https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2015.1065752.
4 Kristina Horn Sheller and Karin Vasby Anderson, Woman President: Confronting Postfeminist Political Culture (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2013), 98; Denise M. Botsdorff, “Vice–Presidential Comedy and the Traditional Female Role: An Examination of the Rhetorical Characteristics of the Vice Presidency,” Western Journal of Speech Communication, 55 (1991): 1, https://doi.org/10.1080/10570319109374368.
5 Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and Leslie McCall, “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis,” Signs 38, no. 4 (2013): 795, https://doi.org/10.1086/669608.
6 Heather Timmons, “Stacey Abrams’ concession speech is a powerful critique of US Civil Rights,” Quartz, November 19, 2018, https://qz.com/1468560/read-stacey-abrams-full-concession-speech/.
7 Danny Hakim, S. Saul, and Glen Thrush, “As Biden Inches Ahead in Georgia, Stacey Abrams Draws Recognition and Praise,” New York Times, November 6 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/06/us/politics/stacey-abrams-georgia.html.
8 Heather Timmons, “Stacey Abrams’ concession speech.”
9 Heather Timmons, “Stacey Abrams’ concession speech.”
10 Nate Cohn, “Why Warnock and Ossoff Won Georgia,” New York Times, January 7, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/upshot/warnock-ossoff-georgia-victories.html.
11 Heather Timmons, “Stacey Abrams’ concession speech.”
12 Heather Timmons, “Stacey Abrams’ concession speech.”
13 Mary J. Blige, “Work That,” track 1 on Growing Pains, Geffen Records 2007, compact disc.
14 Kamala Harris, “Vice President Elect Acceptance Speech,” November 8, 2020. See Matt Stevens, “Read Kamala Harris’s Vice President-Elect Acceptance Speech,” New York Times, November 8, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/article/watch-kamala-harris-speech-video-transcript.html.
15 Harris, “Vice President Elect Acceptance Speech.”
16 Harris, “Vice President Elect Acceptance Speech.”
17 Danielle Casarez Lemi and Nadia E. Brown, “Melanin and Curls: Evaluation of Black Women Candidates,” The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 4, no. 2 (2019): 288, https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2019.18.
18 Lara Bazelon, “Kamala Harris’s Criminal Justice Record Killed Her Presidential Run,” The Appeal, December 4, 2019,https://theappeal.org/kamala-harris-criminal-justice-record-killed-her-presidential-run/ ; Danny Hakim, Stephanie Saul, Richard A. Oppel Jr., “‘Top Cop’ Kamala Harris’s Record of Policing the Police,” New York Times, August 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/politics/kamala-harris-policing.html.
19 Kamala Harris, “Kamala’s Plan to Transform the Criminal Justice System and Re-Envision Public Safety in America,” Medium, September 9, 2019, https://kamalaharris.medium.com/kamalas-plan-to-transform-the-criminal-justice-system-and-re-envision-public-safety-in-america-f83a3d739bae.