Billed as an historic candidate due to her status as the potential first Black female occupant of the Oval Office, Kamala Harris' stance on race relations is understandably a topic of great interest as the November election approaches.

Though she has remained largely mum with regard to her position on several key issues, professor and researcher Erec Smith suggests in a piece written for The Hill that Harris should hew closely to the approach to race taken by then-presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Elephant in the room

Smith, a Cato Institute research fellow and rhetoric professor at York College in Pennsylvania, has explained that, while she may wish to avoid going into great detail on the subject, Harris will have little choice but to address the topic of race ahead of the election.

As he points out, some have already declared Harris a “DEI candidate,” and as such, she will need to consider carefully how that could impact her presidential prospects.

In Smith's estimation, Harris' record does not exactly align with that moniker, but he acknowledged that her “endeavors as a prosecutor and attorney general are politically nebulous.”

Smith suggests that Harris may be reluctant to wade into racial waters too much, lest she provide more fodder for the opposition, but he adds that she “has to talk about race in some way, if only for her base,” and in the face of that reality she would do well to follow Obama's lead.

Obama's racial prescription

Back in March of 2008, Obama delivered a speech entitled, “A More Perfect Union,” in which he articulated his take on race in America and the best way forward on the issue.

As Smith described it, “Obama seemed to take no sides. With cognitive and affective empathy, Obama gave generous explanations for conservatives and liberal behavior, alike, an apologia for everyone regardless of race and positionality.”

“No one was blamed; everyone was praised, at least for their potential to be good citizens,” Obama declared, according to Smith.

In his op-ed, Smith continued, “Obama's speech was meant to calm the fears of American voters who had never voted for a Black presidential candidate. These fears will no doubt resurface with Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic nominee.”

Smith added that while there may be some who contend that any suggestion that Harris should approach race as Obama did represents “a false equivocation,” all that matters is that Obama set the precedent and “established his ethos as a candidate” that ultimately led to success.

A plausible path?

The moderate, even-keeled approach adopted by Obama in 2008 that Smith says Harris should now take may, however, seem inauthentic and disingenuous, however, given some of the vice president's previous statements on race.

In the wake of the 2020 George Floyd riots that brought racial division to the forefront and resulted in the destruction of entire swaths of major American cities, Harris' tone was anything but conciliatory, as Fox News noted.

Referencing the BLM protesters responsible for much of the devastation seen that summer, Harris declared, “They're not going to stop. This is a movement, I'm telling you,” adding, “They're not going to let up and they should not and we should not,” perhaps rendering any future. attempt to alleviate voter concerns about her radical, progressive views dead on arrival.