Kamala Harris Would Be A DEI President — And That's A Good Thing For America

This column is part of HuffPost’s “She the People” series, stories by Black women exploring Kamala Harris’ historic candidacy. To read more, visit our hub.

I guess I fit the part.

I was given an abusive client because leadership assumed I had “the personality and resilience” to deal with it. I don’t know if it was the mammification stereotype of the strong Black woman that people love to eat up, but throughout my life I’ve been expected to perform like Superwoman to be considered average. In one instance (of many) in my career, I was asked to rebuild the entire partnership and infrastructure of a nationwide project with an extremely difficult client no one else wanted to work with, with little training, management or team support. Given I had been pushed to be excellent to be considered average my entire life, I overcame the challenge and helped scale up the campaign with this client to 250,000 participants and 1 million clothing donations, thus saving a sinking partnership all while being harassed on calls and receiving racist emails. 

And, after all of this, a white teammate, who consistently made big mistakes on projects and hadn’t run a successful campaign, was given a promotion and a raise. I was told “Good job” but given nothing else for the hard work I put in. Failing upward is often a result of white supremacy while marginalized individuals are expected to over-perform to just keep their jobs. This is why many of us feel the ancestors’ refrain of “working twice as hard for half the results or pay or both” is real.  

Before I ran my own leadership development and behavior change training company as a business owner, I worked across four industries and saw this double standard over and over again. It’s why when Vice President Kamala Harris announced her bid to run for president on the heels of the news that President Joe Biden was exiting his reelection race, the term “DEI candidate” popped into headlines as a lame attempt to invalidate and malign her campaign, among other sexist and racist jabs, as if being a “DEI” person (first of all, what does that even mean?) is a negative quality to shun. 

The irony is the data doesn’t match the narrative conservative pundits spin about this phenomenon ― in fact, they weave an opposite tale as old as time and as tired as their campaign slogans ― incorrectly painting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as a process of giving marginalized people opportunities they “don’t deserve” and “didn’t earn,” placing “underqualified” people in positions of power as a “handout.” This myth is built on the crusty, racist, sexist, centuries-long tropes that women and non-white people have inherently less capability and aptitude, and thus it should be assumed they are underqualified, no matter their track record, skills or achievements, while bias leads folks to assume positive qualities and traits for their white male counterparts, despite having no proof or evidence of those qualities before they are assumed to be present. This is why Donald Trump, a twice-impeached convicted felon with multiple bankruptcies who helped lead an attempted coup of the government, is able to run for president again with a Cheshire-like grin on his face, and his supporters don’t bat an eye. 

Because Trump, much like many white men before him, is a byproduct of the status quo. Data shows that non-white and female-presenting individuals are held to more exacting and unfair standards compared with their white male peers. Whether it’s a policing of language and tone, extra scrutiny of work output or assumptions about capability solely based on appearances, all of these things mean that non-white and non-male individuals are conditioned to be overqualified and high-performing to get their foot into the door and into positions of leadership or power. It also means whatever they do in those positions is cast as a representation of an entire group of people, whereas white men are often treated as individuals, whose missteps and mistakes are not representative of their race or gender. 

Bigots have a history of weaponizing language, as they are doing with DEI, to dehumanize those they deem less than valuable and to try to explain away inequalities. A majority of leadership positions within the United States are still held by white men in almost every single sector you can think of, from government and businessto academiaand entertainment, despite the fact they make up only roughly 30% of the population. This fact of overrepresentation was not created by merit or capability but was crafted through hundreds of years of racist and sexist laws and policies that barred various demographics from the ability to hold leadership positions, as well as through nepotism and favoritism. Conservative pundits spinning false narratives about DEI understand merit as much as they understand what the term DEI even means. 

To mask this fact of bias and entitlement leading to an overrepresentation of white men in leadership positions, conservative leaders will often create slurs their followers run with that signal the darkest parts of folks fears: that people who they believe are inherently incapable are taking away their rightful positions of power. Somehow for those people, DEI ― which actually means creating practices, policies and behaviors that create better financial, mental and physical outcomes that benefit everyone, including white men ― is interchangeably used as a derogatory alternative for the N-word. They bastardize the meaning of diversity, equity and inclusion as a bad thing because they are afraid of what an all-inclusive world looks like: a world where true merit and capability, across demographic backgrounds, are considered, where nepotism and bias aren’t defaults for who is given opportunities, where power is shared within groups and not hoarded by a few, and practices and policies don’t just benefit the most elite or privileged at the expense of everyone else. So they cast Harris as a DEI candidate to simultaneously discredit her accomplishments while quietly dog-whistling to their brood. 

A majority of Americans are struggling financially, there are significant levels of loss and death of civilians at the hands of horrific imperialist practices across the globe, the planet is literally on fire, our democracy is being held together by toothpicks and prayers ― all of these failings under a majority of white male leadership. Yet these leaders are not called “nepotism candidates” or “biased candidates.” They are allowed to be individuals, with their own strengths and weaknesses, and are not cast as symbols of a larger moral trend that indicates all capability and aptitude for the demographic groups they are part of.

Study after study shows diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones. Teams that are diverse by gender and ethnicity generate 30% higher scores on multiples on invested capital (MOIC) compared with homogenous teams. Companies with at least one female or one ethnically diverse founder generate more than 60% in comparative business value.

This is because true demographic diversity brings a wider range of experiences and ideas to the table, leading to better decision-making, creative ideas and problem solving. When we combine all of our talents, gifts and experiences across lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, physical capability and more, we have far more input for divergent thinking and novel problem-solving that will benefit everyone, of every background. 

Our country is ready for a “DEI candidate.” Harris’ track record as vice president includes capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors, cutting prescription prices and improving maternal health by expanding postpartum care through Medicaid. Harris helped pass the first meaningful gun safety law in three decades, as well as formed a bipartisan coalition that approved a $1 trillion investment in the country’s infrastructure, a $20 billion settlement for Californians who lost homes to foreclosure and a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company. Trump’s track record includes sexual harassment, large tax cuts for the ultrarich and lying as much as he breathes. His platform is focused on division, reductive stereotyping, dismantling versus building policies that help working-class individuals, and stirring up paranoia, racism and sexism among his followers to keep his grift and money grabs growing at their expense.

A DEI candidate means having someone who will focus on true meritocracy over nepotism and bigotry, real collaboration to create policies that benefit more people versus removing rights and support for a majority of Americans, and actually solving the existential problems we face instead of leaning on the predictable and overdone racist and sexist beliefs and behaviors that continue to block our highest innovation and greatest creations as a species. 

I want to live in a world where the narratives that are created truly match the reality of the world. A true focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in how we think about and practice leadership as individuals means we overcome the biases that have led us to the societal failings we are experiencing right now. Real leadership is the practice of crafting a narrative and goals that can benefit us all. A DEI candidate as president is one step closer to the future we all would thrive in.