Kamala Harris Is Not Your Mammy — Or 'Momala'

I never know what to make of well-intentioned white liberals. They always seem so sincere despite their inability to recognize just how much they benefit from the status quo. The problem has always been what to do about it. If they renounce their privilege, it feels performative, and if they use it to advance people of color, then it feels like ham-fisted pandering.

Enter Drew Barrymore (always Drew Barrymore), who, on Monday, interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on “The Drew Barrymore Show” and did the thing where she sits uncomfortably close to her guest during the interview. If you were at the ATM and someone got as close to you as Barrymore gets to her guests, you’d assume you were about to get jumped.

Anyway, Barrymore was sitting there under the vice president’s nostrils, and she was doing the white liberal thing of earnestness through sympathetic facial expression, and the two started bonding over being stepparents.

“I love Disney. However, Disney kind of messed that up,” Harris said. “You know, for a lot of us over the years, [there was] the evil stepparent.”

Harris shared that her bonus children call her “Momala” ― you know, a portmanteau of “Mom” and “Kamala.”

“It’s just not fair to [children] to put them in a situation where, intentionally or not, they are being manipulated around the adults’ weird relationships with each other,” the vice president said. “You have to sort that out.”

And then, with the kind of heartfelt, nurturing tone that only a well-intentioned white liberal can muster, Barrymore made the whole interview cringy AF.

“That’s a great segue to say that I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom,” Barrymore said. “I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the