Tri-City residents can view with considerable interest the selection of a presidential nominee born in a Kaiser Permanente hospital 30 miles to the north, who started her public service career in the Alameda County district attorney’s office and is the child of immigrants. Her mother was born near the Bay of Bengal and lived in New Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta during her childhood.
The idea of a product of East Bay communities ascending to government’s highest level—as well as the first person of South Asian heritage to hold the office—would obviously be history-making. She would be America’s first female president, and the only California-born person other than Richard Nixon to be elected to serve in the White House (although Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan too resided in our state).
Gender, ethnicity and local affinity are of course not the only criteria by which we should choose America’s chief executive. Scrutiny of Harris’ political history on issues on which she’s been associated, such as border security, public safety and incarceration, reproductive freedoms and international relations, are clearly germane. It’s also fair to dig into Harris’ rapid rise from her modest Berkeley and public law school roots to the social milieu of Pacific Heights celebrities and billionaires. And it is appropriate to discuss the mechanics of selecting a nominee without direct voter participation.
What is disturbing, however, is the open racism and misogyny that has greeted her status as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Opening TikTok immediately algorithmically streams a series of vulgar tropes about Harris’ alleged sexual history. This has nothing to do with anything and would be out of place in any employment interview, let alone one for one of the most important jobs in the world.
This drumbeat of inappropriate messaging from the servers of a foreign-owned social media company is offensive and harmful to women and girls in general. It is disruptive to the democratic process. One does not have to be a snowflake to be appalled by this open hate speech.
While Meta has tightened algorithms so clumsily that even legitimate posts by this news organization get filtered and blocked, Tik Tok and X are normalizing antisocial behavior that clearly will have future consequences.
As we too frequently see, it is easy to cross the line from dehumanizing words to violence. Let’s stick to issues, facts and responsible media in the coming months as we decide the future of the country.
