The Media Still Needs Training On How To Deal With A Powerful Black Woman

Why would any Black person defend their blackness to a white person in an interview?

I found myself genuinely frustrated for Vice President Kamala Harris when CNN’s Dana Bash asked her about presidential rival Donald Trump’s inane claim that she only “turned Black” in recent years out of political expediency.

Harris’ response was perfect: “Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.”

Even before Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, sat down with Bash for their first interview since becoming the Democratic nominees for president and vice president, I rejected the notion that the occasion would be as important as some circles of the media had been suggesting it might be.

Because I knew there would be stupid questions like this.

In the weeks after President Joe Biden ended his 2024 reelection campaign, Harris found herself increasingly criticized overnot having scheduled some sort of news conference or press interview.

As some members of the press ― notably the Beltway media that dominate the shaping of our political coverage ― insisted on air, in print and across social media that it was vital that Harris allow herself to be subjected to media scrutiny.

To them, she needed to prove she could handle an unscripted moment. And she had to explain her policy positions ― past, present and future ― directly to the American people with appropriate pushback from a journalist. Only then, the notion went, would Harris prove how serious her campaign would be following what was often described by these same folks as “the honeymoon period.”

Yet, as Ernesto Apreza, special assistant to Biden and press secretary to Harris, noted via his personal X account , by the time Harris sat down with Bash last Thursday,