Is America ready to elect a Black woman president?

It’s the big question that has loomed over Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign from the start: is the United States ready for a Black woman president? 
 
It is a question I am asked mostly every time I speak about the American politics. And it’s a question that pundits, observers and experts keep on posing and no one can seem to come up with an answer. 
 
It does, however, because the question isn’t really a question at all, and it certainly isn’t a question that can be answered. It’s so heavily laden and to answer it, it needs too much history, culture background, judgement and speculation. 
 
Although the question allows for inferences on the inherent racism and sexism that has majestically invaded the American political systems and culture, it does not vet it, thereby leaving certain assumptions about just how sexist and racist the country could be open ended. 
 
Imagining if America is “ready” also makes a presupposition regarding history of progress – that is, how things evolve is more or less linear. It presumes that at some time in the future America might be more prepared for a Black woman president than it ever was before. It presupposes, to borrow the words of Martin Luther King junior that ‘the moral arc of the universe is long but it is inclined towards justice’. 
 
As with many of the concepts articulated in the work of King, it has once again been reduced to the notion that societies ‘evolve’ and that women and people Of colour will continue to receive equal treatment as the society progressively develops into a more tolerable and accepting entity. 
 
It presumes that one fine day, the USA may fully come to terms with it’s very own revolutionary idealism of ‘all are equal’. 
 
That may be true But as Harris has herself said the United States of America isn’t a perfect country either. Although it read the word equality into the Constitution, progress on the matter has been marked by irregularity and an embarrassingly slow pace. It has also been a violent and in some occasions a warring society. 
 
History is not a forward march There is no message to be gleaned from the history of the twentieth century as some might want to believe. It does not ‘evolve’ to some kind of utopia; and hence, it is not all that perfect. It is, as it is said most of time, a battle. 
 
Hell yes, you are ready for it? 

Numerous other countries have demonstrated how at one time they can be ready for a woman leader at different phases in their development only to be ‘unready’ again. 
 
The largest democracy in the world, an Indian sub-continent selected Indira Gandhi as the Prime minister in the year 1966. Gandhi served for more than a decade and until 1980, she was assassinated, then again Gandhi from 1980 to 1984. All of the leaders since then have been a man. 
 
Likewise, the United Kingdom had the first woman prime minister though in 1979, her name was Margaret Thatcher. When Thatcher had to step down in 1990 there was no British woman leader again until Theresa May from 2016 to 2019 and now Liz Truss in 2022 and that was not a good experience either. 
 
In Australia Julia Gillard in 2010 had a very close election to become the prime minister and was replaced by a man four years later. Since then, there has barely been an indication that a woman, not to mention woman of colour, might gain the leadership of either the Republicans or the Democrats in the following decade. Was Australia ready for woman leader in that period at all and can one consider the country ‘ready’ with the treatment Gillard received during her term as the Prime Minister? 
 
New Zealand has for example a better record in this aspect. Jenny Shipley formed the first woman prime minister in 1997 after easing out the leader of the coalition government. Helen Clark was then the first woman who was elected prime minister in 1999 followed by Jacinda Ardern who become the second youngest prime minister in 2017. 
 
Although Britain and to some extent New Zealand and Australia share certain similarities in their political cultures they have different political systems than that of the United States. Unlike the case in the US, their leaders are not directly elected hence the identification of the specific leader is not a main undertaking during the election process. 
 
Other nations with direct election, however, have also been ‘ready’ for women heads of state at one time or the other. Iceland had the honour of being the first country in the whole world to elect a woman directly to the post of presidency in the year 1980. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir had her term of service for 16 years. Another nation seemingly deeply conservative was also prepared 30 years ago, Ireland which, in 1990, has directly elected the first female president – Mary Robinson. 
 
Structural inequality 

With this, these women can be said to be proven as an exception to deeply-seated structural gender discrimination in politics globally – though arguably worse in the United States. 
 
That the issue of ‘readiness’ is still topical highlights the brutal truth that lack of balance in the representation of women, especially Black women and women of colour is not only a matter of America, but most democracies. 
 
In June this year, UN Women said there were only 27 nations with female leaders. It said: 
 
Context matters 
 
It is well to remember that not very long ago — and in many people’s minds just yesterday — the likelihood of a woman being “first” was sealed by the victory of Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. When she agreed to take the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, she was standing, quite literally, under a broken glass ceiling. 
 
Only a few months later, that ceiling, as fast as it was removed rose again in thick and strong manner. 
 
As we have seen even defeat of Clinton in the 2016 election cannot categorically explain that America was not ready for a woman president. Context is crucial. 
 
Although the candidate is ‘ready’ to vote for a woman president, it means that she or he is not ready to vote for just any woman. They will make choice based on multiplicity of factors that are likely to be complex and may include a candidate’s policy stance. 
 
And while the pundits wail about Clinton’s gender leading the party, it’s debateable that the implementation of free trade agreements by both Bill and Hillary Clinton – Bill overseeing NAFTA while Hillary backed TPP – and stagnant US
growth had more to do with Clinton’s loss. And her describing the disenfranchised voters as “a basket of deplorables” go even worse.

After all, Clinton had a lot of political sins on his conscience after years of his public activity. It is impossible to separate the 2016 presidential race from the political, economic and historic happenings that accompanied Trump’s political evolution. 
 
Likewise, while it is certain that some of the Britons voted for Thatcher because of her sex, others supported her for her conservative policy agenda or maybe because they hated her opponents. 
 
Half a century later and on different sides of the political spectrum, Harris is feeling the heat from an increasingly vocal segment of her own electoral bloc’s constituency to shift ground on the Middle Eastern state. This is a severe and urgent policy concern that is in no way related to her ethnicity or sex and all about contrasting political paradigms as to America’s place in the world. And that will influence many people’s decision in November. 
 
In other words, it cannot be readily said that Clinton narrowly lost the election in 2016 due to America’s unwillingness to be ready for a woman. Or perhaps the situation has evolved in a way such that it can now be said that the country is ready. 
 
But in a different context with a different candidate with a different policy platform, America may well have been “ready” back in 2016. A different woman – yes, it is possible to state that such a lady as Michelle Obama could easily stand up to Trump. Or not. Well we have no means of ascertaining that we can only conclude when all the fact have been gathered. 
 
And even if we did, even given those scenarios, we still could not claim that America was ready at that moment for a Black woman to lead. 
 
Kamala Harris’ ‘firsts’ 
 
However, at the convention for the Democratic Party which took place in July this year in Chicago, Hillary Clinton using the context of “firsts” and American progress. That is why she stated that the idea of ‘no ceilings for our dreams’ is now a reality. 

However, just like Harris, she is future-oriented, but not her ‘firsts’. 
 
For instance, in her first public interview since winning the Democratic candidacy, she waved off a question touching on Trump’s concentration on her color. Her campaign has managed to set the kind of vilification for gender or race and particularly the women’s bodies as weird. 
 
Thus, the Harris’ campaign effectively shifts the narrative of identity politics on Trump and Vance as tightly. Her campaign is portraying a very different style of power altogether – one that is not bothered at all about Black women ruling the roost. 
 
The Harris campaign is countering this with the message of structural gender/racial oppression and women’s most fundamental of rights, the right to control our own bodies. Thus, the war campaign is adopting a sisterhood Feminism instead of the Feminism of early 1990s perceived to be more of ‘white women’ feminism associated with Clinton. Kamala is, after all, brat. 
 
Harris is intentionally refraining from what seemed like, in the Clinton campaign, a naively reckless oversimplification of identity: that Americans would vote for her because she is a woman or because it is America’s turn to elect the first woman president. 
 
All of this is, however, at least implicitly, a realization that readiness is not a clear- cut concept with an unequivocal answer. The Harris’ campaign acknowledges that it is not talking about a collective readiness, it is about getting enough of those Americans who are ready ready. 
 
As Biden has explained more than once, “women are not without […] electoral or political power”. Thus, Black women’s voter registration has increased by 98% since 2020 in four years On the use of the Internet. 4%. It has increased among young Black women by 175 percent. 8%. 
 
The leading dblad of Black American women is clearly prepared for this moment.

There is actually no answer to the question.
 
Should Harris win the elections this November, many will consider this as evidence that something has shifted, that America was ready to be led by a Black woman. Well, that could also be a fact. Up to a point. 
 
The United States once illustrated itself “prepared” — ready to elect its first Catholic president. In 2008 it demonstrated that it is ‘ready’ to elect the first black president. 

But eight years later motherhood vowed to the lionizing of a domestic work force issuing directives, they went back to being very much not ready. 
 
They suggest that the divisions in American politics are quite profound and, in fact institutionalised. These issues have never been answered since the formation of the country. This will be doubly historic, it would have been the first election of a black woman to such a high office, and this in a campaign that has already been quite unusual. 
 
To this, I will use the following conclusion: Thus while many have stood up and demanded that America is not ready for this moment, or not ready for the answer to this question I will make it clear that no one person can answer such a question. 
 
There are two versions of America: a ‘when I wanted it’ one that was ready for that, and a ‘when it is possible’ of which probability may never occur. These two versions co‑exist. Well they are for the moment, and I must admit that I still do not see how they can be reconciled. 
 
Bothsides understand that who wins in November is just a signal of who is in control in this moment. It will not be some sort of definitive answer to a question posed since the formation of this country as to what the United States is, and what it is to become. 
 
Well, that is not the way the history has been made.