Thread by @VABVOX

THREAD📌
I will say this in my column, but @KamalaHarris had to navigate so much: She was up against the sitting VP. She is one of only 4 women in US history to be on that stage, as a nominee and is the only Black woman & only 2nd Black person to do so.
#VPDebate
1/x

The expectations of women are so much more than they ever are on men. For WOC, it is exponential. A Black woman on stage as a challenger to a white man is itself an optic that unsettles the fundamental narrative of white supremacy.

#VPDebate
2/x

Many of us were shattered by the abusive performance by Trump a week ago. So comparatively, Pence's calm, message-driven gaslighting performance seemed different. Contentious but not threatening--not like Trump's scary shouty abuse. Or was it?
3/x

Have women just learned to accept men being quietly abusive? Most women have--of necessity. The man who dresses you down and lectures you the way Pence tried to do with Kamala Harris has to be nodded along with to maintain jobs and more.
#VPDebate
4/x

I saw in @KamalaHarris's performance a career prosecutor melding her incisive questioning with the clear knowledge that as a Black woman, the rules are not only different for her, they are constantly changing and you don't know how, because the power is not yours.
#VPDebate
5/x

Every time Kamala Harris smiled instead of raising her voice she was disrupting the narrative and the trap that was being set for her. It was masterful--but how exhausting to have to navigate that minefield. How exhausting to push back again and again.
#VPDebate
6/x

She said it again and again--and it was for EVERY woman and girl in America: "stop interrupting me," "don't lecture me." She also laid out her credentials: her many firsts as a woman and as a POC. Men's credentials are assumed. She owned hers.
#VPDebate
7/x

All these things matter.They add up to her win: 59% to Pence's 38%. Confident, earnest, charismatic, empathetic. She proved beyond any doubt she was ready to be president if needed.
#VPDebate
8/x

After 90mins of quiet, smug, entitled bullying, of flouting the rules and lying repeatedly, Pence still lost. And Kamala, who followed the rules, kept smiling yet demanded equal time, obliterated the trope and Pence's argument for Trump. The #VPDebate began & ended historic.
9/9