Thread by @gwensnyderPHL

You know, I really really do not like Hillary Clinton and I campaigned hard for Bernie in the primaries, but it was meaningful for me as a woman seeing a woman break the glass ceiling of presidential nomination.

These shatterings matter.

It's not that I felt HRC was ever the right choice, or that we should ever back or support a candidate who represents oppressive policy because of their identity.

Tokenism helps no one.

At the same time, when a marginalized person achieves an achievement their identity has been long barred from by law and/or prejudice, it materially changes things.

It can give a glimmer of hope to folks from that identity that maybe new roads have been opened.

And, it helps open other roads.

You can be cynical about the road in question (as I very deeply am when it comes to presidential and DC politics) & still recognize that its opening forces folks to begin to get used to seeing marginalized people as leaders and potential leaders.

All this to say, I'm seeing a lot of Black women here celebrating Harris' presumptive vice presidency, and bracing myself for the inevitable backlash by white lefty folks who think they understand racism better than these Black women do.

And I would submit to you that in fact, Black women have a deep experiential knowledge of racism from, and that they do not need white people's help understanding how Kamala Harris' policy legacy squares or doesn't square with the reasons some are celebrating her victory.

Politics work on a number of levels, and policy is only one.

Representation and visibility by themselves are not nearly enough to accomplish liberation, but they *do* contribute to the liberatory project when they are practiced in a non-tokenizing way.

So, when it comes to Harris, today is a good day for white leftists to maybe try and practice a little liberatory humility and understand that, while Harris is extremely not a friend of liberation, there is power in the symbolism of a Black woman in the vice presidency.

And also to understand that the symbolic power of a shattered glass ceiling is never *just* symbolic.

It has a real world impact on the way members of the shattering group are perceived and treated in the everyday world.

Powerful symbols have real life consequences.

For white folks, liberatory work right now looks like continuing the fight against the white supremacist fascists, opposing Trumpian overtures at coup, and building grassroots power to win concrete victories for liberation whether electeds want to play ball or not.

The last thing we need white folks doing right now is policing the joy of Black women.

We have real work to do.

Let's focus on that, please.

(The end)