Is it ‘Kamala’ or ‘Harris’? The answer is complicated.
Kamala Harris is brat. She is the horticulturist of the communal coconut tree that we did not just fall out of. Or just as much the harvester of the apple tree that we did spawn from, if you live by the philosophy of British icon Charli XCX. It’s a Kamalaminomenon, in the words of skyrocketing pop star Chappell Roan.
When President Biden announced he’d be stepping off the campaign trail, he threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, pegged as the best choice to replace him in the 2024 presidential election. It was clear that Harris’ team was poised and ready for the shake-up. Almost immediately, the Biden/Harris HQ social media branding was transformed into the newly “chartreuse” green Kamala HQ, and a spot blasting the inspiring notes of Beyoncé’s “Freedom” hit screens days later. She broke fundraising records in the first 24 hours after Biden’s announcement.
It seemed the presidential hopeful was making a new claim in direct response to what the Biden administration represented: An aging ticket, against a similarly aged opponent, that simply wasn’t up to speed with what the under-34 vote demanded. Brats and femininomenons and coconut trees were Kamala’s — sorry, Harris’ — weapons. They were Harris’ — no, Kamala’s — new PR strategy.
Therein lies the problem (or one of them, anyway). Past the memes and pop music, how were supporters supposed to refer to the Vice President now? “Vice President” surely wasn’t pulling in the viral likes. Is it “Kamala HQ”? Or the “Harris campaign”? Is “Momala,” as Drew Barrymore tried to make happen, ever appropriate?
“Now is a good time to pay attention to the way people are referring to her. Are they referring to her as Kamala? If so, this is a common practice which de-legitimizes a woman in politics. Making a more casual and informal reference to the politician, makes them appear softer and less of a contender. We see this very commonly throughout politics in the United States,” said Maggie Perkins in the caption of a viral TikTok video from July 22. Posting “Kamala 2024” is very different from “Harris 2024,” said Perkins, drawing parallels to the use of acronyms like “AOC” and “RBG” and the marketing of the Stacey Abrams campaign. “If you think I am overreacting, I would encourage you to pay attention to the way that the media refers to her and the way that other politicians refer to her.”
Non-Black creators flocked to the note, fearing that they were playing a part in the denigration of a potentially history-making campaign and forcing another woman of color into the trappings of respectability politics. As writer Charles M. Blow wrote in a New York Times opinion piece from May, following backlash to Barrymore’s use of the term “Momala,” “Black women and girls spend their entire lives in flight from a society insistent on de-individualizing and dehumanizing them, insistent on forcing them to fit broad generalizations… In this case, the stereotype at play is that of the mammy — the caretaker, the bosom in which all can rest, the apron on which we have a right to hang.”
But others online, predominantly Black women and women of color, felt differently. Several pointed to a 2020 YouTube video of actor Mindy Kaling and Harris making dosas together, in which Harris asked to be referred to as “Kamala.” Her own campaign branding uses “Kamala,” they pointed out, and, in many ways, it is a reclamation of her heritage to use her first name — especially as her own peers refuse to learn its proper pronunciation, decades into her political career. This was the least of our worries, they noted, and unhelpful virtue signaling.
Popular creators, like childhood educator @mrs.frazzled, began referring their followers to a series of videos posted by Erika Harrison, also known as @blackgirlswhobrunch. “We call [politicians] by their most distinct name. With Kamala, her last name Harris is not very distinctive, but her first name is,” Harrison said in one video. “Y’all are trying to defend her in this way that she never asked for, and it is ironic because she has always campaigned around her first name. I get what y’all are trying to do here, but I’m gonna be very direct here: White women, this is a waste of your time.”
Harrison was one of nearly 44,000 Black women who attended a post-announcement virtual call with Win With Black Women earlier this week — a record-breaking meeting that saw nearly Black women organizers convening to game-plan the Harris campaign and discuss the path forward.
In the span of just three days, online sentiments shifted: What started as a call to action that using the name “Kamala” was a form of systemic misogyny or even misogynoir, became the idea that using her first name is a sign of cultural and political respect. As it turns out, both ideas can be true.
Sexism on the campaign trail, and within elected government bodies, is still a pressing issue. A recent study of 60 women in politics conducted by Cosmopolitan and Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures showed that sexist biases pervaded things like committee assignments and even salary figures, as well outright harassment in the workplace. Ghida Dagher, CEO and president of New American Leaders, told Cosmopolitan, “Elected positions were created in the image of white landowning men. And these jobs continue to be arranged in a way that supports and reinforces that structure of power.”
Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance is currently under fire for saying “childless women,” including Harris, should not be in politics.
In 2015, the Atlantic referred to the trend of “mononymy” (or single name usage) as a trap created by an “informal age of unearned familiarity” in society at large, but especially among voters. For the author, political candidates, who were ever more inclined to use their first names (Take “Jeb” for Jeb Bush, “Bernie” for Bernie Sanders, even “Beto” for Beto O’Rourke), were worryingly shifting into marketing themselves like celebrities. But voters have long clamored for the personalization of their elected leaders (as well as their families), and politicians, both men and women alike, seem to view the “first” versus “last” decision as a question of marketing. Long before the aughts trend and the Harris campaign’s “meme army,” there was a lineage of acronyms (JFK, RFK) and nicknames (“Ike” and “Teddy”) that feel, in many ways, just as informal and just as famous.
All politicians are making carefully crafted branding choices, handpicked for the electorate that will put or keep them in power. When made by women leaders, and especially women of color, those decisions may just have father reaching implications.
When former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran in 2016, her “I’m With Her” and “Hillary for President” branding leaned into the familiarity, and femininity, of her first name; neither of these were the official slogan, “Stronger Together.” There was debate even then: Was “Hillary” an important differentiator from her husband’s presidential term, or yet another way to minimize her bid for leader of the free world?
Days after the announcement, Harris’ and Clinton’s campaigns were already under comparison. Parallels to other notable female historical figures trickled through headlines, including Shirley Chisholm, the first Black candidate for a major party nomination and first Black woman to run for the Democratic nomination. In 1972, Chisholm campaigned on just her last name and the slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.” While much is the same, Harris is operating in a different world than Chisholm was, or even Clinton, one in which she is dividing her time between appealing to the honor-driven American masses and the fickle online contingent, not to mention her current duties as VP.
And many worry that institutionalized sexism and the rise of white supremacy in mainstream politics still create insurmountable odds for a progressive female President.
Harris is a seasoned politician, backed by a galvanized supporter bloc, and she has clearly drawn her own boundaries: According to her campaign’s brand, Kamala is fine; in fact it might help her chances at the polls, and Harris is the professional title she’ll don on stage and in session. “Brat,” according to her cheeky Charli XCX-themed posting, is also fair game, as her campaign kicks off and pundits scramble to understand the “youth vote.” But personal monikers, like “Momala” and even “Auntie,” in her words, are a step too far.
The internet has received a pass on the discourse for now. The history of racism, sexism, and misogynoir in our country’s politics, and the inequitable ways many of our nation’s leaders have come into positions of power, aren’t fodder for TikTok. And the name debate says more about our political landscape, now at the whim of online sentiments than ever before, than it does anything about the Harris campaign.
