WASHINGTON — Not an hour had passed since Senator Kamala Harris made history as the first woman of color to land on a major party’s presidential ticket when political strategist Adrianne Shropshire was already bracing herself for what was sure to come next.
“I am trying to hold on to the joy,” she said, taking in the weight of the moment.
But the racist and sexist attacks on Harris’s gender, identity, and appearance were already rolling in online. False information about her record and criticism of her running mate, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, was circulating, including the erroneous assertion that she is ineligible to serve as president because her parents were immigrants.
For women of color in politics, and specifically Black women, the Internet has been a powerful tool to tell their own stories and circumvent the traditional, predominantly white media establishment that too often ignores their campaigns or provides coverage that plays to racist or sexist stereotypes.
But in recent years, Black women have become frequent targets of an onslaught of online hate from domestic and foreign perpetrators whose tactics have become more sophisticated and harder to trace, disinformation and media analysts said.
This presidential election, Harris — whose committed fans refer to themselves as the “KHive” (a nod to Beyoncé’s “BeyHive”) — won’t be alone to fight her battles. An online campaign has emerged to defend her from the attacks: #WeHaveHerBack.
“We are prepared and have been preparing for this moment,” said Shropshire, founder of the political action committee BlackPAC. “We are preparing precisely because we think it’s going to be very ugly.”
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