Kamala Harris Is Not Your Mammy Or 'Momala'

I never know what to make of well-intentioned white liberals. They always seem so sincere despite their inability to recognize just how much they benefit from the status quo. The problem has always been what to do about it. If they renounce their privilege, it feels performative, and if they use it to advance people of color, then it feels like ham-fisted pandering.

Enter Drew Barrymore (always Drew Barrymore), who, on Monday, interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on The Drew Barrymore Show and did the thing where she sits uncomfortably close to her guest during the interview. If you were at the ATM and someone got as close to you as Barrymore gets to her guests, youd assume you were about to get jumped.

Anyway, Barrymore was sitting there under the vice presidents nostrils, and she was doing the white liberal thing of earnestness through sympathetic facial expression, and the two started bonding over being stepparents.

I love Disney. However, Disney kind of messed that up, Harris said. You know, for a lot of us over the years, [there was] the evil stepparent.

Harris shared that her bonus children call her Momala you know, a portmanteau of Mom and Kamala.

Its just not fair to [children] to put them in a situation where, intentionally or not, they are being manipulated around the adults weird relationships with each other, the vice president said. You have to sort that out.

And then, with the kind of heartfelt, nurturing tone that only a well-intentioned white liberal can muster, Barrymore made the whole interview cringy AF.

Thats a great segue to say that I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom, Barrymore said. Ive been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now. But in our country, we need you to be Momala of the country.

Do you feel that? Thats the part of you thats saying, No, Drew. Not like this.

Momala. Of. The. Damn. Country. 

Harris face, which was a mix of laughter and dread, said it all. Truthfully, this might have been the vice presidents single most impressive moment in public to date, because Im not sure how she held it all together.

Whether its Kendall Jenner handing riot police a Pepsi or Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats kneeling in kente cloth in the Capitol rotunda after the murder of George Floyd, some acts of white liberalism have always been, well, weird. Its not that I dont think theyre well-meaning, or sincere; they just never seem well thought out. At best, white liberals are the burglars in Home Alone. I really believe that they want to break in; they just dont know how to outsmart that pesky kid. Or even better, white liberals have always reminded me of the slave masters child. You know, the kid who loves the slave and who actually sees them as a full person, but isnt big or strong enough to do anything about it. Except white liberals actually can do something about it they just always seem to get tripped up right around the actionable parts.

The sign that change is real as opposed to symbolic is that people are making real changes to things close to them in their own backyards, such as supporting more affordable housing in their neighborhood, or programs that would integrate schools, Matthew Delmont, author of Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation, told CNN  in 2020.

Broadly speaking, Delmont said, White Americans and other people with socio-economic status have to be willing to give up something to have a more just and equitable society.

And when it comes to most white liberals, not only is that a bridge too far, but well, why do anything when theres a Black woman who can do it for you? Just ask the 94% of Black women who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In that same election, almost 50% of white women  voted for Donald Trump . It seems unlikely that among all those Trump-voting white women, there werent any who didnt describe or think of themselves as liberal.

But this probably wasnt at the forefront of Barrymores mind when she hopped up on that couch, dangerously close to the vice presidents kneecaps, and declared that the country could use some good old-fashioned Southern hugs from a Black woman caring for a house that isnt hers.

Think about it for a second. Barrymore had the most powerful woman in the world on her couch, and she asked that woman, who is Asian and Black, to be Americas stepmom. She didnt call for policy change, or push for Harris to use her platform to inform viewers about the importance of Novembers election. Nope, she asked the woman of color, who is already working hard enough to ensure that the Biden administration can defeat Orange Thanos, to hug America through it. 

Harris has spent her entire time in the White House focusing on Black maternal health, an issue distorted by the belief long prevalent among doctors that Black women have thicker skin and can handle more pain than other women. As a result, Black women die during natural childbirth at more than three times the rate of white women. And here was Barrymore asking Harris to bear everyones pain for them literally the thing that is killing Black women.

While Harris handled the awkwardness with grace, I wouldve loved for her to say, You know, Drew, you can do it. You can hug the country, too, cause you is kind, you is smart, you is important .

Seriously, if Harris had said that, it wouldnt have been too much of a leap from what Barrymore was asking. But I dont think such a thing would have ever occurred to Barrymore in the first place. Not because shes incapable of insight I just really suspect shes one of those folks who still believe that you can stop violence with a hug and a kind word. Whatever a Karen believes, Barrymore believes the opposite. She is a Drew. Always a Drew.

If Barrymore had waited a beat, she might have realized that it doesnt make a ton of sense in this situation to ask a Black woman to do yet more heavy lifting, above and beyond what shes already responsible for or to do it on behalf of a country where lots of people dont particularly care for her , and where some people say truly vile things about her .

I would hope that Barrymore wouldve considered that Black women have been tasked with raising other people for centuries. Moreover, as Tinseltown royalty, I wouldve liked for her to reflect on the decades-old history of mammifying Black women in Hollywood and then perhaps refrain from asking the Black vice president, who attended Howard University, one of the foremost HBCUs in the country, to be Americas mammy. And dont make that face, thats exactly what she did. (Also, not for nothing, but why is Barrymore, an adult, positioning herself and millions of other adults as the children of Harris or anyone else? Harris is 59 and Barrymore is 49, so what are we even doing here?)

I dont think Barrymore had any malicious intent behind her remarks. But that doesnt change the fact that white liberals can mean well and still cause ruckus when they are uninformed.

I know I sound like a crotchety old man, a cynic who just doesnt believe in the power of good. But thats because its early, and Ive not had my Pespi, or my daily kneel in the garden draped in kente cloth, or a hug from a kind Black woman who is tired of trying to save us all.