A Silk-Presidential-Press Szn: Can Kamala HQ Turn Virality Into Strong Public Policy?
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 .
State-mandated silk presses and chartreuse-brat-green Kamala-themed "360" remix videos were not on my bingo card for 2024.
After a 72-hour whirlwind of political events, seemingly pulled directly from the writer's room of "Veep" and "Scandal," the absurdity of my algorithm had me reeling for hours.
President Joe Biden's to step down from the 2024 race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris threw Kamala HQ into full swing ― raising $81 million in the first 24 hours and $200 million in that same week.With just under 50 days for Harris' team to run their campaign, it's no question that since the day Biden resigned, the "memeification" of Kamala Harris has infiltrated the internet with stark incredulity.
The Black community and Gen Z alike have forged a formidable force of support for Harris within the first week alone. With election content dominating For You pages and X timelines, Kamala HQ is cultivating an audience of voters generally ambivalent about the state of the world. The perpetual state of exhaustion sprinkled with bits of existentialism continues to be a running theme for my generation, Gen Z. We've been consistently trapped in a cycle of unprecedented moments ― years of COVID-19 societal isolation, inflation, cost-of-living spikes, heat waves on a rapidly heating planet. But society is in the market for something different. Structural change. In a world of digitization ― inundated 24/7 with content and information, Kamala HQ's ability to cut through the noise presents an opportunity for building something more than memes and content.
Now that the mic is on
You've reached us,
Balancing the precarious grasp of the world's attention at your fingertips —
What is it exactly that you want to say?
A three-word exchange on X from British singer Charli XCX crafted an ingenious campaign brand whose preponderance has landed Harris' team in the land of virality. The word "coconut tree" alone has more than 24K posts, with "silk press" at a whopping 367.1K posts. As someone in the market for a bomb silk press, I have been over here taking copious notes as the TikTok girlies are their silk press installs with the backdrop audio of Harris' interview with Keke Palmer , where Keke herself even said: "Girl, you have us shook on the internet. ... You and Queen Latifah are going neck and neck with the silk press, honey!"
Kerry Washington pulled up to the White House in true gladiator fashion to do the notable Olivia Pope stiletto speed walk with Harris. The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. (AKAs) ― one of nine historically Black Greek-letter organizations, also known as the "Divine Nine′′ within the National Panhellenic Council ― has been in full-force mode, amassing more than $1 million in donations at its Chicago virtual call organized by Win With Black Women. More than 40,000 AKAs across the country joined the call. Beyoncé gave Kamala HQ the OK to use "Freedom" for her very first campaign video promo. Taylor Swift took to Instagram to endorse Harris after news broke that a false AI image indicating she endorsed Trump was posted on his website ― highlighting fears around artificial intelligence and misinformation. Kamala HQ's TikTok showcasing former President Barack Obama's endorsement highlights a full-circle moment from when she volunteered for his campaign in 2008 ― and 16 years later, him giving her the support for the big Oval Office seat.
Political candidates throughout history have tried to resonate with Black populations, younger populations and queer populations. Those efforts have always felt distant and out of touch ― and they fell flat. Harris' campaign designed a novel pathway to resonate with communities through niche cultural associations, giving them the chance to say something more about the issues, something that has the ability to stick and actually mean something to people. And with social media's short attention span in the digital landscape, that moment doesn't last long.
Politics has notoriously been marred by an air of redundancy and vagueness, closing the door to real conversations on material issues like the crippling job market, student loan debt, mass incarceration, gentrification, community alternatives to policing and so much more. These issues are not just taglines for political marketing; they exist in the literal sense for everyday people.
When I was doing policy and community development work at Rochester City Hall in New York, Daniel Prude was trending all over the U.S . after he died at the hands of police in March 2020. Through community organizing, advocacy, narrative work, town halls and planning, the City of Rochester created a Person in Crisis Team , an alternative response to police for people experiencing mental health crises. A local organization I work with, Free the People Roc , has continued to build on this momentum with Daniel's Law , which would have public health professionals be the first responders for mental health crises across New York.Through organizing and advocacy, the New York State legislature has created a Daniel's Law Task Force to research and design a non-carceral statewide framework for responding to mental health crises — as advocates continue to push for the full passage of Daniel's Law. This was able to happen only through deep planning and narrative work ― two strong vehicles for moving public policy.
Color of Change has also been doing integral work around alternatives to building community safety. We are organizing around the federal passage of the People's Response Act, which supports innovative methods of community safety and violence prevention by using a public health approach. Our campaign team stood with Democratic Reps. Cori Bush (Mo.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Katie Porter (Calif.), along with the Community Safety Working Group, at the Legislative and Appropriations Agenda Launch in April. Talking with people about public policy and how they wish to imagine safe and vibrant neighborhoods in their immediate community was indicative of how important it is to speak about the issues and to tie these issues back to policy.
Getting people to the polls and voting is just one piece of the puzzle. It is a rarity to garner such high political engagement. And while we cannot meme our way out of societal inequality, racism, lack of economic mobility and so many other ills, we can for sure tap into the engaged audience to talk about things that matter.
What if we could use the same narrative power vis-à-vis social media as a continuous catalyst for advocating for strong public policy? The average person knows nothing about the legislative policy process. Kamala HQ can remove this veil from the public's eye through its content, giving communities the opportunity to understand more about the policies and laws that dictate their everyday livelihoods.
Speaking unequivocally about the issues — a racist criminal justice system, lack of economic mobility, attacks on reproductive justice, inflated grocery prices, atrocities in Sudan and Gaza, etc.— is what should drive shifts in policy. It's what can resonate in the thick of so much unmitigated noise. Kamala HQ's activated base should serve as an opportunity for her campaign to go deeper into the conflicts happening both domestically and abroad — igniting conversations to move innovative and strong public policy to the forefront.
