“Historic Moment”: Barbara Ransby on the Symbolism & Shortcomings of Kamala Harris’s Nomination

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night here in Chicago. Harris is the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for the president by a major party. Her nomination came just over a month after President Biden dropped out of the race. Before a thunderous crowd at the United Convention, Harris laid out her case against Donald Trump.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

Consider — consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite: He fanned the flames. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans and, separately — and, separately, found liable for committing sexual abuse.

And consider — consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol; his explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy; his explicit intent to deploy our active-duty military against our own citizens.

Consider — consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.

And we know — and we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers. And its sum total is to pull our country back to the past.

But, America, we are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with preexisting conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.

AMY GOODMAN: Kamala Harris, speaking on Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention. We’ll get response to her acceptance speech when we come back with Barbara Ransby, historian, author and activist. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Think” by Aretha Franklin, featuring Blues Brothers. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” We are “Breaking with Convention.” We’re here in Chicago for the last day of our five-day expanded two-hour broadcasts from the Democratic National Convention. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we continue our coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris, who formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night here in Chicago. If Harris wins in November, she will become the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be nominated for president by a major party.

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined now by historian, author and activist Barbara Ransby. She’s a professor of Black studies, gender and women’s studies and history at the University of Illinois Chicago. Ransby’s latest book is Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century.

Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Professor Ransby. Well, it was a historic night in many ways. You have Vice President Harris accepting the presidential nomination before 20,000 people. Many of the women — though she wasn’t, many of the women were dressed in white to honor the original suffragists. Can you talk about the significance of this moment and what Vice President Harris did and didn’t say?

BARBARA RANSBY: What she did and didn’t say. Thanks for having me, Amy, and welcome to Chicago. I don’t have to say welcome to Juan, because he is here with us.

But yeah, I mean, it’s a historic moment in a lot of ways. Certainly it breaks a barrier. You know, I never thought I would see a Black woman nominated. But, you know, I want to speak to the historic significance, but I also want to talk about the contradictions — right? — that Kamala Harris, unlike others who have, you know, fought for inclusion in Democratic Party at the convention, isn’t coming out of the same kind of movement. She has ties to the civil rights movement through her mother, and she also participated in the anti-apartheid movement. But, really, you know, I think a lot of what I appreciate about this generation of activists is the deemphasis on representation and the emphasis on politics and the emphasis on where do you stand on issues. And if we think about a tradition of Black women in politics, including in the Democratic Party — right? — it has been pushing the conscience of the Democratic Party toward a radical inclusivity, toward some of the most oppressed sectors of our community and all communities.

And so, yes, it is significant in terms of representation, but, again, at a time when representation is limited. We have a multiracial right-wing movement, by the way. So representation is not the goal, and, you know, I just want to deemphasize in some ways. I mean, of course, we can talk about, you know, a larger political lineage which she is connected to, but I know — you know, I hope — I think we’re going to talk about Fannie Lou Hamer and others — but I think of someone like Abbas Alawieh as much more in the tradition of Fannie Lou Hamer than a Kamala Harris. So, yes, it breaks barriers. Yes, you know, it is a historic moment in a certain sense. But we have to also talk about the gravity of this moment and the politics that Kamala Harris brings with her. So, that is my historian’s view and my activist’s view.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your response to the DNC’s decision to not allow a Palestinian American voice on the stage?

BARBARA RANSBY: Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. I mean, and it was such a small ask. You know, we’re witnessing genocide in Gaza right now. And many of our hearts are breaking, certainly our Palestinian friends and colleagues here who have lost dozens of family members — people you’ve had on your show — who tell harrowing stories, the physicians who have gone there and seen the devastation of children, hospitals bombed, etc. So, you know, a minimum of decency would have been to allow for a Palestinian voice on that stage.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering, the whole week, for those of us who remember the old Democratic conventions, the first convention that I covered as a reporter was —

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, you were raising trouble in ’68, I hear.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Right, but the first one I actually covered inside was in 1984.

BARBARA RANSBY: OK.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what has struck me about this convention and the last several is the level of mass — of choreography of mass spectacle.

BARBARA RANSBY: Yes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: There are no — back in the ’60s, ’70s and even the ’80s, individual delegates could hold up their own signs. You know, the cameras would show dissent in the audience. Now we’re talking about a Democratic Party where every single banner is controlled — 

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — and decided by the organizers of the convention. And everyone, like sheep —

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — get up and hold the same signs at the appropriate times that they’ve been told to do it.

BARBARA RANSBY: A little creepy.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And so, you really have no dissent —

BARBARA RANSBY: Right, right.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — visible at all — 

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — within a supposedly democratic party.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, on the floor, it was the Minnesota delegation — and that’s an interesting delegation. They had 10 uncommitteds — 

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — people who would not commit to —

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — well, President Biden at the time, when voting in the primary. And they held up the names of Palestinians who had died in Gaza. And immediately, the other delegates in the Minnesota delegation, well prepared, held up “U.S.A.” signs that covered all of those signs.

BARBARA RANSBY: Oh boy, yeah. I missed that. That’s interesting.

AMY GOODMAN: And then you had the unfurling of the banner earlier in the week — this was in the Florida delegation —

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — by a Florida delegate, a Connecticut delegate and a delegate from Michigan, that said “Stop Arming Israel.” And they immediately put up signs, placards that said “We Love Joe.” It was Monday night when Joe Biden was speaking.

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And immediately, some of the runners for that Florida delegation started handing out dozens of placards, and so they had more and more to cover the banner — 

BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — because that was particularly large.

BARBARA RANSBY: Concealing and containing protest in this sort of cosmetic appearance of unity, when there was dissent in that room, not just the uncommitted delegates, but others. But it has a carnivalesque feel to it. And the real conversations and the real passions and debates were happening outside.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s stay inside for a minute.

BARBARA RANSBY: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Kamala Harris addressing the issue of Israel-Palestine and Israel’s war on Gaza.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.

And let me be clear. And let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating — so many innocent lives lost; desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.

President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.

And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Vice President Kamala Harris in her acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president, speaking here in Chicago at the United Center. Professor Ransby, your response?

BARBARA RANSBY: Well, I was glad to hear her mention the suffering of the Palestinian people, but, of course, it didn’t ring true. It rang a little bit hollow, because the Biden administration could stop much of that suffering, you know, by not sending 2,000-pound bombs and $3 billion a year to the Israeli government. So, you know, it would have been backed up by action, if it would have been backed up by allowing a Palestinian speaker to speak in their own terms, that part would have resonated.

But, of course, talking about Israel’s right to defense disguises the fact that this is an offensive war, offensive on every level that that word means something, right? And the United States is facilitating it. And the 40,000 Palestinian lives — I mean, you all absorb these numbers every day in your reports, but it is — it was not enough. It was the wrong message. And, you know, a throwaway line about Palestinian suffering does not get it.