With Kamala Harris Or “Monologues on Community”
Henry J Kaiser Center for the Arts
10 10th St, Oakland
March 3, 2026
I wouldn’t say that I was “excited“ to see Mrs. Harris. Interested? Sure. Curious? Perhaps. No shade on our former vice president, the last mammal to serve in that office. I’m just not that excited to see any reminders of how we’ve ended up here. And that’s not blame. On the list of people to blame for our duly elected dictatorship, Mrs. Harris falls behind the well-meaning-registered-democrat-who-sat-this-one-out-because-of-some-fucking-bullshit.
I covered both the 2024 RNC and DNC for Midbrow. Each left a bad taste in my mouth. The RNC felt like an entire arena LARPing an ultra right wing version of ‘Idiocracy’. The last day of the DNC I remember walking out of the security gate in what felt like a stupor, sensing an enthusiasm gap and creeping resignation of what was to come.
But Kamala is an Oakland girl. She would be better received here. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, certainly was as he took his seat in the front row to applause.
The event was billed as a conversation with Kamala Harris, and I gleaned from the slideshow that this was a tour she’d been undertaking for some months. I’m reminded a little of Theodore Roosevelt traveling the country after being turned out of office. He literally went door to door on occasion. Probably not advisable in modern day Oakland.
When Mrs. Harris arrived, veritably gliding across the stage, a vision of poise and dignity so lacking in office today, I was surprised to find myself stand and clap with the rest of the audience. I keep myself necessarily at a remove to write more honestly and clearly, but I was genuinely happy to see her. It had been a couple years. She looked swell.
The evening was emceed by congresswoman Lateefah Simon, a mentee of Harris’s. Harris related their first phone call when Simon was working with the Young Women's Freedom Center in San Francisco.
“I told her ‘I work with teen prostitutes,’ and Kamala said to me ‘there is no such thing as a teen prostitute. They are sexually exploited children!’”
As District Attorney of San Francisco, Harris ended the re-victimizing practice of arresting child sex workers.
“That story is the story of advocacy. Fighting for something, even when it hasn’t been done before. A lot of that comes from Oakland… “
Indeed, it’s that ineffable quality that has drawn many people, your humble narrator included, to the Bay for decades. A scrappiness, a defiance, a community that will lift you up, even if it empties your pockets at the same time. And sometimes, there’s reeeeeeally weird eyebrows, but I digress. I imagine she’s come home for a booster shot of it.
“It’s all about community. “
Harris was weaned on community here, from her childhood visits to Berkeley‘s legendary Rainbow Sign to her days working with the aforementioned Mrs. Simon’s nonprofit. Harris was delighted to wax on about America’s youth, her hope, and in pointing out hometown homies.
It was at that point that I noticed a couple of things. Mrs. Harris is engaging, intelligent and capable, but I wouldn’t say that she was terribly charismatic. She likes to laugh, but isn’t horribly funny. I wanted to edit her story down to an essence as she was telling it, strangling the life out of what should’ve been a light and fun anecdote.
As for the “conversation“ part of the evening, Mrs. Simon was largely absent, content to let her mentor rhapsodize and soliloquize through mazes and dead ends. Apart from praise, there was a little talk from stage left.
Mrs. Harris did become a bit more focused when talking about the current administration. She anticipated much of what Trump has done, but regarding the other estates…
“I did not expect capitulation.”
That is when she became her most animated and intense. It was quite reminiscent of her steely demeanor when facing down Trump at their debates. Incensed, she pulled up just before diving in some choice descriptions.
“There are children present,” she quipped, before landing on a safe “F” word:
“Feckless.”
Beyond the midterms, Harris is hopeful about life after Trump terms out, but isn’t overly sanguine.
“We’re going to be faced with a whole lot of debris. Don’t be nostalgic about the time before all this. The system wasn’t working for a lot of people. “
To that end, I understood why they chose this format. It had the feel of a town hall, but there were no mics passed through the audience, and the two or three questions posed were passed to Simon written on a card. The smattering of heckles were ignored. Harris, who was part of the Biden administration, a former senator, and a former DA, was definitely part of “the system“ from the time before. That time of military strikes, cuts to “entitlements”, and widespread, continued immigration enforcement/detainment. It’s hard to point fingers because that is part of America’s DNA since at least the end of the Cold War, arguably earlier. But here, Harris went unchallenged.
It felt like a dodge. Because it was. And it’s not her job to answer for anything, it would just be nice, otherwise it’s a pantomime of openness and caring.
I walked home feeling a little disappointed. Crossing Lake Merritt to Lakeshore I heard a rustling off to the side. An unhoused man and his dog had emerged from their shelter under the bridge. He was heeding the call of nature, but when he noticed me moved a little further along for some discretion. It was a little on the nose, but you don’t have to look far to find people for whom the system has not worked.
