From the same woman who wrote an entire essay fawning over Michelle Obama's arms...try not to lose your lunch reading this, I dare you...
The sound and sight of Vice President Kamala D. Harris laughing carries confidence, strength and a peek into her own humanity. Sometimes it’s a laughter that fills an uncomfortable silence. Often, as when she stood with her shoulders back in her Delaware presidential
campaign headquarters and characterized Donald Trump as emblematic of the sort of hustling, fleecing and physically abusive crooks she put in jail when she was a prosecutor, her laughter is more of a knowing glint in her eyes accompanied by a patient smile. But mostly, her laughter is
loud, boisterous and indulgent. Her shoulders shake and sometimes she doubles over from the effort. She doesn’t look around for others to join inasmuch as she simply reflects the moment: the thrill, the fun, the catharsis, the you-have-to-laugh-to-keep-from-crying-or-punching-a-wall of it all.
Some might characterize Harris’s laughter as an expression of Black joy — part of a long legacy of being able to find hope and happiness when others have made it their mission to try to deny you both. On the political stage, it’s an expression of
power in the face of misogyny, racism and scorn.
Her critics would try to steal both her joy and her authority by belittling her belly-busting guffaws. They call the sound she makes a
cackle, as if to suggest that a natural outburst of delight or pleasure is somehow unseemly, disruptive or foolish. They place Harris’s voice, which is neither overly emotional nor shrill in the same category as that of Hillary Clinton’s, which is to say that it’s the well-modulated and sturdy voice of a woman not shy about owning her accomplishments, releasing her ambitions or speaking her mind. They regard joy as an eminent danger because it contradicts their depiction of the country’s status as dire, with barbarians at the gate, heathens in the temple and predators on the prowl in every kindergarten classroom.
Trump, the Republican’s nominee for president, has crafted an apocalyptic message about the state of America. There’s so much to fear and fear is no laughing matter. And so Trump scowls. Upon occasion, he smirks. When he’s particularly pleased about a line that he’s landed during one of his marathon speeches, he might draw his mouth upward so that his cheeks puff out. He’ll tilt his head from left to right as he listens to his audience guffaw. But he doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t break with his tough guy, superhuman persona.
Whenever he says something outrageous, something that can be read as a direct assault on democracy, as a promise of authoritarianism if only he can get his hands back on the controlling levers of government, his supporters dismiss the words as a joke. As they see it, the man who publicly refrains from laughing
is constantly joking.
Harris laughs with gusto. She doesn’t dismiss the dangers the country faces or downplay the struggles of this country’s citizens, but she gives them permission to lean into pleasures wherever they might find them. She reminds them that they can unclench their fists, stop grinding their teeth and breathe. Life isn’t all bad, and it has the potential to get better.
Harris chuckles during a speech at the Zeta Phi Beta Boulé in Indianapolis. (AJ Mast for The Washington Post)
Harris laughs raucously and messily. There was a time when Black folks had to curtail their emotions in public. When women were considered ill-mannered if they chortled freely. Some of her detractors can’t help but fall back on racism and sexism to argue against her candidacy. They refer to her as a diversity, equity and inclusion hire, which is the new way of calling her an affirmative action beneficiary, which was always a way of claiming that some non-White man got something that they didn’t earn or deserve. Harris has the audacity to look unruffled by the characterization. She seems to think so little of the substance of their argument that when she’s out on the campaign trail, she has the gall to laugh. Her laughter is edifying precisely because it leaves some folks enraged.
Who does she think she is?
How weird is it to deride a person for laughing? Not for laughing inappropriately,
in the middle of a funeral, for example, but simply for enjoying a good chuckle?
“Weird,” of course, is the word of the moment. It’s the way in which Harris’s supporters have begun referring to Trump and his running mate JD Vance. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) was among the first to attach the adjective to Trump to sum up the former president’s nonsensical anecdotes about sharks and Hannibal Lecter, his continued denials of facts, along with the rise of
Project 2025, a draconian, far-right governing doctrine championed by some in his circle.
“As we work to build a brighter future and to move our nation forward, we must also recognize there are those who are trying to take us backward. You may have seen their agenda. Part of it is called Project 2025,” Harris
said during a July rally in Indianapolis. As she spoke, she paused for effect. A bemused smile spread across her face and a chuckle entered her voice.
“Now can you believe they put that in writing?” she said with bemusement. “Nine hundred pages of it!”
Vance has heaped scorn upon her and others in the Democratic Party and in the country as a whole who do not have children. Vance has argued that
childless folks in politics don’t have any real skin in the game when it comes to the future of the country. He added that childless people in the media are “unhappy” and “miserable” and take out their sorrows by writing stories critical of him. Vance went on to toss the phrase “childless cat ladies” into the political maelstrom he’d stirred. He has since tried to explain himself by noting that he just believes in being supportive of families — despite having
voted against legislation to provide federal protection of IVF — and that he meant no disrespect to those who have been unable to have children for a variety of reasons, whether they are at the mercy of biology or unrequited love. But Vance did not seem to grasp that the overarching offense was in suggesting that one’s life is sadly incomplete and futile without children: “Kids are the ultimate way that we find, healthy people at least, I think, self-meaning in life,” Vance said.
An army of Harris supporters rose up in response, mostly with droll humor, cheeky sarcasm and cat-bedecked
fundraising merchandise. Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, defended the relationship she and her brother Cole have with Harris using wit and emojis. “How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I?”
Laughter is power. It’s seeing life’s highs and lows in the broadest context. It’s having the strength to be vulnerable and the wisdom to know that a back that carries the burdens of leadership in solitary stoicism will eventually break. Laughter is only human. And surely that’s what one hopes a potential president sees — someone flawed, empathetic and confident — when they look in the mirror.
By
Robin Givhan