Kamala Harris and the Bombardment of Diversity and Inclusiveness

We know the story: the candidacy of Kamala Harris for the U.S. vice presidency places us at an increasingly common crossroads, since diversity and inclusion have become the easiest fix for anti-racism, sometimes taking precedent over the fight against the structures that actually allow racism to flourish. The positions are divided, once more, between those who celebrate the arrival of Black people to spaces where we have been historically excluded, and those who are suspect of those that attain power just to apply the same or similar policies, with a diverse face.

This is not new in the United States, where former President Barack Obama’s case made clear the limits in representation, and how the milestone of being the first Black leader of the U.S. was not sufficient to end historical dynamics stultified in the depths of America’s DNA. During his administration, despite his words and efforts, there was massive incarceration of African Americans, voting rights remained limited, police brutality ran rampant and the U.S. kept bombing countries.

In Spain, this reality of representation and diversity has its echoes. For example, it’s of little use that clothing brands rush in to hire Muslim women, if, when those same women apply to work for the stores directly connected with the brands, employers throw away their resumes after reading their names or seeing their headscarf. Or that many large companies make racial diversity campaigns when their staff is one color.

These cases highlight the limits of representation and diversity understood just as a cosmetic patch and not as a change in the way of doing things. In a recent article, anti-racist activist Yeison Garcia made a very relevant insight that goes to the bottom of the issue: “Do we want African Americans guarding our brothers in racist jails, also called Foreign Internment Centers?”

This is the crux of the matter. Racial diversity in the space of power visibility has to go hand in hand with policies and actions that have anti-racism at the core and structural change on the horizon. Otherwise, we will have more cases like Bertrand Ndongo, adviser for the Spanish far-right political party, Vox, in the Madrid Region — a clear example of a Black person that defends policies against the Black population and migrants, groups of which he is a part of. He was given a platform by famous TV news shows like “Espejo Publico,” who invited him to participate in political discussions just for being a Vox sympathizer, at the same time Rita Bosaho, who didn’t get as much media attention and was not invited to the show, was becoming the first Black congresswoman in the Spanish Parliament. If this is the diversity we are aspiring to, it’s a failure.

This works as a warning: that racialized people are the ones leading with their actions, policies and speeches, the foundations of racism in a society, while at the same time, a lot of traps are being laid to deactivate movements that go to the genuine roots of the problem. Frequently the powers that be will wash their hands by responding: “Didn’t you want a Black person?”

The Kamala Harris case is useful to remind us that diversity has to be coupled with an anti-racist campaign to not get stuck as a cosmetic movement that whitewashes racist policies. It is of very little use to push for the presence of people of color in spaces of power if it’s just to keep applying, as is normally the case in the U.S., policies of mass incarceration of Black people, voter suppression, or the bombing of civilians that have very little to do with their imperialism. The limits of representation should be clear to avoid clapping for a diversity that will aid in the dropping of more bombs.