Jimmy Fallon Joke That Kamala Harris Might Just Murder Lester Holt Shows the Fine Line She Must Walk
Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon joked that Vice President Kamala Harris might have been angry enough to murder NBC News’ Lester Holt over his questions about the border, illustrating the pressure Black politicians, especially women, are under not to appear angry.
On Tuesday night’s episode, Fallon played a clip of the VP’s interview with Holt — until fairly recently, a registered Republican — in which the interviewer pressed her on visiting the border. A clearly impatient Harris responded to Holt’s bleating refrain of “You haven’t been to the border,” by saying “And I haven’t been to Europe…”
Fallon followed that clip by saying “Well, that escalated quickly,” and after a pause for laughter, added “That’s right, Harris was not in the mood. Don’t be surprised if you see Lester Holt narrating his own episode of Dateline. ‘It started out as a normal interview…'”
Dateline NBC is a Holt-hosted newsmagazine with a heavy emphasis on true crime stories.
It’s funny because it’s true — anyone who has watched the dopey, bad-faith, and successful campaign by right-wingers to get the media to treat the border situation as a “crisis” (explicitly in order to make immigration policy more inhumane) has to feel the barely-restrained frustration at this latest iteration. You can feel it every time Harris is asked about visiting the border.
But as Fallon’s joke illustrates, even restrained frustration translates differently for Black politicians. Remember the shitstorm that ensued after then-President Barack Obama correctly said that police “acted stupidly” when they arrested a Black man for talking back to cops who were harassing him in his own home. Keegan-Michael Key even built a hugely successful bit around Obama’s need for an “Anger Translator” to avoid appearing too angry for White Americans.
Vice President Harris is less restrained, more outspoken than Obama was — and more practiced at making it go down easy, but as a Black woman, she’s managing a stereotype that’s even more resonant because of her race and gender.
That bit of laughed-off frustration she showed Holt was likely as far as she felt she could go. But if she’d given Holt — and CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, and anyone else making this stupid demand — that she visits the border — that’s fueled by hate — the destroying they deserved, the VP would risk a deluge of attacks about her “anger.”
Instead, Harris pulled up. She let them skate, and for her trouble, she’s being portrayed as unprepared — by a mainstream media that in the same breath freely admits that the border visit is an empty canard, as well as by naked racists who no longer feel the need to say the quiet part quietly.
Watch above via NBC.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
