VP Harris Talks Race, HBCUs & More With 'All The Smoke'

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All the Smoke podcasters Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson headed to the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. to talk to Vice President Kamala Harris. While it may seem like a stretch for the former NBA players to take on a political interview, the two got the presidential candidate to answer questions about various topics ranging from stepparenting to race to Black men and mental health.

Here are some highlights from the interview, lightly edited for clarity.

On race:

MATT: 

I grew up with an Italian mom, Black dad, and was always very proud of my heritage until an incident I had in high school when I was 17, protected my little sister, someone called her some names. I did what big brother did. I ended up getting into trouble and the KKK, came and vandalized, nearly burned down my high school. I knew at that point, although I was very proud to be Italian and Black, that the world looked at me as a Black man. You’ve always been secure in your identity, who you are, but what do you feel or what do you think when you hear people kind of questioning just the fabric of who you are?

VP HARRIS:

Well, one, I don’t listen to it. I’m really clear about who I am and if anybody else is not, they need to go through their own therapy. My mother was very clear she was raising two black girls to be two proud, Black women, and that was never a question. You know, it’s funny because over the years, journalists, some, not most, will want to talk about it, and I say, ‘Okay, if you want to have this conversation, I’m prepared to have it, but sit down and get comfortable for a few hours.’

If you want to start talking about race in America, you want to talk about the one-eighth rule, you want to talk about what it means in terms of who you are perceived to be and the impact that can have on the rest of your life, regardless of who you actually are, in terms your God-given capacity and the rights that you have and should have? So you know, I don’t mess with that. I think that’s other people trying to figure some stuff out, and they got to deal with it themselves. 

On HBCUs:

MATT: HBCUs are such a big thing now, and I feel like when things get trendy everyone wants to talk about it and be a part of it. You were someone who went to an HBCU. As an athlete, I’m just like, ‘it’s a great idea, and I wish it was more cooler when I was coming up.’ But at the same time, I don’t think the facilities could have held us, you know what I mean. I was fortunate enough to go to UCLA and it was like being a professional athlete. Some of the brightest minds come from these HBCUs, but the conditions aren’t what some of these other schools are.

VP HARRIS: So the history of our HBCUs is a phenomenal history, which again, was born out of struggle and people sitting around saying we’re not gonna wait for other people, right. So there were a collection of people that were white and Black and of many different backgrounds who understood that young Black, bright people were not having equal access to top levels of education. And so, in a nutshell, that’s how our HBCUs got formed. I attended Howard University, which is one of the oldest, and it built up over the years, with its purpose and mission being to create national and international leaders, had a reputation of doing that, cause it did that.

But over the years, we also know that our students. HBCU students, don’t necessarily, frankly, make the same kind of incomes that people who go to predominantly white institutions do, don’t start out on the same basis. So even if they are, they’re also taking care of their parents, they’re also taking care of their younger siblings, and don’t necessarily have the extra to be able to build for the school. The endowment, which alumni give to, that ends up funding things like a first-class program, be it athletic or scientific or something else. So a lot of my work, especially in the Senate and now as Vice President, has been to increase federal funding to HBCUs because, again, I know they are centers of academic excellence.

They are centers of academic excellence but don’t necessarily have the same kind of resources. And so far we’ve given now, under our administration, as I’ve been vice-president, $16 billion more dollars to HBCUs. When I was senator, I was responsible for helping to get billions into upgrading, literally, the physical structure, because they’re old. Yeah, and I think increasingly, to your point, more people are understanding. It’s like, we maybe skipped an era, but we’re getting back to a place of more people understanding what our HBCUs do, and giving more support financially to them. But we have to because it’s an incredible experience to walk on campus and everybody looks like you.

On Black men and mental health:

STEPHEN: Mental health is big in the Black community, especially Black men. We have a lot of Black men out there starting grassroots organizations to help their communities. I’ll give you an example, a guy named Zeke. He’s building chapters called New Era all over Detroit, the Bay Area, Texas, everywhere. And then what they’re doing is they’re taking care of the communities regardless of race. If somebody’s being mistreated in that community, they’re going to handle it. Is it anything that you’re thinking about that can help these people that’s building these grassroots [organizations) that are actually getting stuff done on the ground?

VP HARRIS: Absolutely. I think, first of all, I think the mental health issue is probably one of the biggest public policy failures in our country. We’ve acted as though the body starts from the neck down, right, instead of understanding we need health care also from the neck up, and it has to be done in a way that gives people the dignity and the respect they deserve. The most effective mental health care is often because it is peer-based. It is without judgment, and it understands people have to be understood for you know, who they are culturally, who they are in terms of their life experience, if you’re really going to be able to get into their needs.

We also have to take the stigma away, and so part of that is about reminding people. It’s just like, if you break your arm or you got a toothache, this is about health care. And helping people understand it’s a sign of strength to ask for help, not a sign of weakness. Because when we talk about mental health care, a lot of it, especially for people who have experienced trauma, we’re talking about pain. And we understand physical pain, take an aspirin, whatever, but we don’t deal with mental and emotional pain in the same way.

Watch the entire interview below:

VP Kamala Harris Talks Race, HBCUs, Mental Health And More With ‘All The Smoke’  was originally published on cassiuslife.com