Kamala Harris, Cleopatra Of The West - Queen, Seductress, And Goddess

 'I am a proud black woman', Kamala Harris shouted to the crowd, channeling JFK's famous 'Ich bin ein Berliner' to West Germans hoping for the fall of Communist East Germany and the reunification of the country. It was a rousing line spoken in solidarity and passion and in defiance of the totalitarian regime across the Berlin Wall, a defining moment for the young president and the first of many such endorsements of freedom to come. 

 

Kamala also knew of Ronald Reagan's 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall', but thought only of his dashing, virile predecessor.  She didn't so much admire Kennedy or wanted to be him, but to be in bed with him just as many beautiful women had been before her. 

The regent that Kamala truly admired was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt and lover of emperors, the consort of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Pompey, the triumvirate of Rome, all irresistibly drawn to her charms and irresistible allure.  

'I am Cleopatra', Kamala said as she looked in the mirror, seeing in her dark complexion, slightly Oriental eyes, and luxuriant hair the very image of the Egyptian queen. She tilted her head upwards, giving her face an imperial look, stern, resolute, but still enticing.  'I would look good in gold', she fancied, 'gold threads in my robe, a gold scepter in my hand, a gold tiara on my head'. 

She smiled to her reflected image, saluted, and walked out of her boudoir to the applause of her admirers, ready for the new day, the campaign, and anointment as the new President of the United States. 

'God forbid', said Elton Graham, closet but not disloyal, a former supporter who had seen enough but kept his own counsel, feeling like many in her inner circle that a Democratic victory was worth the woman's intellectual irrelevance.  Yet and still, every morning that he had to listen to her drumming about legacy, historical imperative, and moral right, he thought of jumping ship - leaping over the side of her royal barge. 

As much as Kamala fancied herself the beloved Queen of the Nile, it was Enobarbus' coda to his famous elegy to Cleopatra that fit:

Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.

'Ready, folks?' she asked, greeting her staff with the famous Harris smile, practiced and perfected as an eye-wrinkling, happy, joyous one, but Graham could only see the Joker, lips smeared into a red smile, covering up the demented soul within. 

 

'First stop Philly, City of Brotherly Love', she continued walking briskly past her staff, head held high, the presumptive President of the United States only a few short weeks from coronation and her rightful place.  She had already thought about how she would redecorate the Oval Office, something a bit more fitting to her person, something symbolic of the historic moment and of the universal resonance of a dark-skinned, female regent - the head of Nefertiti, perhaps, loaned by the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. 

As she thought of the great royal wife of the Pharoah Akhenaten, one of Ancient Egypt's greatest and most powerful rulers, she wondered what she was doing still married to this old Jew, hardly the consort appropriate to her station; but he would stay in the wings, and the people would think of her and her alone. 

It is easy to see how this black thing had gone to her head.  If she hadn't risen to political prominence in the Age of Identity, she would simply have been an ambitious prosecutor of indeterminate racial and ethnic origins.  Her Genghis Khan tenure in California would have done the trick as far as political possibilities were concerned - she had beheaded many a defense witness and attorney and left a bloody trail of lifeless bodies on her way to Washington - but now that it was only her race that mattered (ethnicity and that nagging bit of saris, pujas, and the Elephant god kept well out of view). She rode high and mighty thanks to race, and her selection of Vice President was thanks only to that. 

An aide had given her a copy of Black Athena, a book based on the assumption that Greek civilization was rooted in sub-Saharan African influences rather than Indo-European ones. Author Bernal argues that such influences were underestimated due to the racism prevalent among nineteenth-century Europeans.  Nonsense of course but still in currency and often cited in American progressives' demands for a return of the black man to his rightful place atop the human pyramid.  Not only was he the inheritor of natural wisdom derived from his tribal, forest roots, but was responsible for the efflorescence of Greco-Roman civilization. 

Kamala appreciated the thought of her assistant, but said, 'I am not that kind of black woman', the full-lipped, tightly-curled hair, wide-nosed African of the jungle and the ghetto.  'I am Ptolemaic'. 

Of course she knew which side of her toast was buttered and presented herself on the campaign trail as just that - a woman as black and African-looking as Michelle Obama, a woman of the inner city with as much street cred as an Anacostia ho' - and as much as the inner Kamala hated to do it, she pimp-walked her way from city to city. 

'You're going overboard on the black thing, Madam Vice President', said a trusted advisor, 'so better get onto the woman bandwagon for a change', and so it was that beginning in Sioux City, where there were few black people to speak of, she rode the female thing.  ' I am Woman', she began, fitting she thought of a woman embodied, symbolized, and incarnated in all women. 'A woman for America, a woman for the world, and a woman for all of history to come'. 

Her aide whistled gently and gave Kamala the 'tone it down' sign, but she was on her way now, on a roll and unstoppable.  Women were not only entitled to the Presidency, they belong there, and belonged in every position of power and authority everywhere. Men were necessary add-ons, supernumerary sperm providers, irrelevant in all but the rooster's contribution, and she would emblemize the female future. 

Here the aide whistled much more loudly gave the Vice President the 'cut' sign but she banged on with even more passion and invective. After twenty minutes, flushed and exhilarated, she stopped and waited for the applause which this time would be louder and more prolonged than ever. She had made her point. 

And so it went on from whistle stop to whistle stop, from one campaign rally to the next until election day drew near.  Victory was almost at hand.  She had no doubt that she would ascend to the highest office in the land to cheers and rousing acclaim.  She would rule kindly but firmly, and justice and compassion would be her bywords.  A woman for the times, and woman for all seasons. 

Time will tell.  The election is in two months and the race is tightening, but Kamala had a vision of herself sitting on the throne of Cleopatra, took it as an omen, and knew that her destiny was near.