Tag: Kamala Harris

Good night and good luck

… What follows is not about that precisely – the 2005 movie, the expression that gave the title, but George Clooney has been on my mind of late, and said movie is not only one of my favorite Clooney films, but I also became aware a short while ago that he is to produce and star in a Broadway adaptation next spring – the twenty year interim reflected in him this time playing the Murrow role. This was very surprising to me because I have never associated Mr. Clooney with the stage, but as I remember it the fixed interior (TV studio) and dialogue does indeed lend itself to that medium.

But this is not about the biz, but something else in which Clooney has, quite extraordinarily, not played an insignificant role. Others, with names like Pelosi and Obama, have of course played more significant roles.

On Sunday, at about 2:00 in the afternoon Eastern Time, Pres. Joe Biden withdrew from seeking (the seemingly assured) Democratic nomination for US President. This came after weeks of mounting discontent amongst the ranks of the party; from the foot soldiers, to the officers – elected and not, to the money sources. I will not re-litigate the arguments parlayed in the sad saga of a man in decline, and in denial, of the ravages age brings with it, or of its tragic pinnacle in a humiliating television debate with Trump.

Clooney? As an influential Democrat, a major fund raiser, he wrote an opinion piece – sorry, ‘guest essay‘ – for the NYT making a case that Biden should leave the race – and one of the first to publicly do so. One could ask: well, what has HE got to lose? But, still … A big star in a supporting role – most just wouldn’t touch it. Yes, I am an unabashed fan – seriously dating from the early ER days – but in recent times I have been more impressed by his presence on the theater of real life, albeit of the highest Niveau. (See, for instance, in a role reversal of the marital solidarity norm, his ‘standing by his … what? partner?’, after Amal Clooney was harshly criticized for her work for the ICC in respect to potential crimes – by both parties – during the Gaza conflict.)

As I write, following an immediate endorsement by Biden, and an ensuing closing of ranks, the Vice President Kamala Harris is now all but the presumptive Democratic nominee. Can a Black woman do what an eminently qualified white woman could not: be elected President of the United States of America, and do so against the same opponent?

By the way, did I mention the bizarre assassination attempt perpetrated against that person the previous week? I thought not. I will return to this.

In these days, as in his own, Ed Murrow’s sign off is more wish than promise, and luck an unreliable quantity.

How political can Black be?

Identity, very real yet permanently theorised upon; the reflection in the mirror or thoughts in the head, the heated arguments, the terminology, and beyond – who is what and who says, variance in usage and acceptability over time and from nation to nation; all this and more is almost impossible to escape these days, and just when one is convinced to be almost on top of it, or given up in despair, there it is again demanding to be considered again. For me, at least, that state arises again this time in reading an opinion article in The New York Times by Kwame Anthony Appiah; throwing a spanner in the works again.

Springing from an ongoing debate, some of it fair, and some provocative purely for the sake of provocation (this ranging from the mischievous to the malevolent) about the correct nomenclature when in comes to US Vice-Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, born in California to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, Appiah’s thoughtful piece returns half-way home (for him) to the United Kingdom, where ethnicity has been historically approached differently and the matter much more black and white (my pun is intended), to construe his argument.

Appiah describes the “political Blackness” ideology, rooted in the early nineteen seventies and finding legitimacy at the latest in the eighties, and in the wake of recommendations from the Commission for Racial Equality; whereby Asians were officially categorised as Black. (In terms of Britain, important is that here we are talking predominately about South Asians – i.e. Indians, Pakistanis, etc. dispersed in the wake of Partition and the aftermath – whereas in America one would understand “Asian” to refer to those of East Asian, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Southeast Asian, for instance, Vietnamese, descent.) While historically and unofficially, Black people were always seen to be anyone who was not absolutely white, that categorisation was then embraced by many in minority communities that were not sub-Saharan or from the African diaspora.

Under the “umbrella” of their Blackness, it is easy enough to understand that its proponents envisaged power, not only in numbers, but shared experiences and just grievances, mostly extending from the remnants of Empire and colonisation. It is also clear: there are disadvantages inherent in claiming too “big a church” for too “diverse a congregation” (my unoriginal metaphors). Appiah also agues on the point of the immense range of internal diversity; cultural and religious (e.g. consider alone India: Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, etc., languages and dialects ad infinitum, socio-economic status and caste) that further complicate sympathies and allegiances.

Today the project still remains highly contentious – for every example of mutuality sought there is at least another of repudiation and offence. But, as an “idea” of inclusivity, it is not dead and that is something.

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