This image has always struck me. I cannot remember the first time that I witnessed it, but I do remember the most important time. In the fall of 2018 I was interning in Washington D.C. just as the National Gallery of Art opened the Gordon Parks exhibition Gordon Parks: The New Tide 1940-1950. This exhibition was a beautiful display of Parks’ work and it was the first time that I got to engage with his work in-person.
On a crisp November morning in 2018, I rode the M6 bus from my Suitland, Md. apartment, transferred to the 32 at Penn and Potomac, and walked the few blocks from the bus stop to the National Gallery of Art, stopping for a bite to eat on the way. When I got to the gallery, there was a line that snaked through the museum from the front door of the building to the entry point of the exhibition. The line was dotted with people standing patiently, waiting to experience Parks’ work. I looked forward to experiencing it too. At the entry point of the exhibition was this image, famously titled “American Gothic.” It was the reason I came. I had always felt drawn to the image, and I leapt at the opportunity to see it up close.
When it was my turn to enter the exhibition, I walked up to “American Gothic” and marveled at the magnitude of its size. The exhibition design team made the choice to enlarge the image to a size that seemed bigger than life. It was god-sized. I felt the weight of Ms. Ella and the weight of the flag she stood in front of, sandwiched between a mop and broom. Myself, a young Black woman interning in the nation’s capital, I felt an eerie sense of responsibility and heaviness. Of having to do the hard, heavy work of tending, cleaning and keeping. Of feeling a sense of inner turmoil even when you don’t always know what it’s for. I had come to Washington to intern for a former president and I was living in a roach-infested apartment across the border in Maryland, commuting one hour each way everyday just to be in service to something I felt that I believed in.
In this iconic photo, we see Ms. Ella Watson, a Black woman government worker standing in between a broom and a mop directly in front of a large American flag displaying its (in)famous stars and stripes. I have always looked at this image with a visceral, resonant knowing.
I know Watson and I have known her my entire life. I know her power—because it’s my power too. The power to alchemize whatever material she has been given by enduring and persevering under immense pressure while holding fast to faith in a higher power. And I know the force that she has come up against—a power that requires endurance and perseverance under immense pressure as a condition for survival.
What happens, then, when Watson’s image becomes the dominant image clothed in the latter power? An image of power that fuels this country out loud instead of hugging dark, quiet corners concealing itself behind closed doors and revealing its strength after closing hours? This is the question that I am asking myself in the wake of this election cycle. For months, we have been fed imagery and narratives that seek to pull at our heartstrings, minds, and spirits. And as we anticipate the potential election of the first Black woman president of the United States, I am toying with several things. This piece is a result of that toying.
I identify as a Black woman and I have been taught to trust Black women my entire life—trust Black women and honor them. I believe wholeheartedly that Black women embody divine magic and that that magic has been hard fought and well tended-to. As a child, I defaulted to Black women in every case because I saw them (us) as my mother, grandmother, cousin, auntie, kin, etc. Black women were who I looked to for safety by default. That is why engaging with the current political reality is more challenging than it has ever been for me.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ image is alluring to me and simultaneously, her seat of power has seeded a deep distrust within me. As an adult, if you decide to grow up, there comes a point when you learn that defaulting to anyone or anything is a dangerous game, and that you must learn to discern for yourself no matter who or what is guiding you. You learn that those whom you love the most may actually not have the best advice or intentions, and that you ultimately must be the one to decide the direction that your life will go.
I learned a long time ago that presidents are not my saviors and this election cycle has been an important reminder of that. Should a Harris presidency come to pass, I realize that I will need to fight like hell to be more discerning and critical of my perception of this country and its leaders than I have ever been. I love Black women so much that I want to be one, and because I have been taught to trust Black women by default, I must hold fast to what is actually true about the seat of power even when someone seemingly attractive and familiar to me is sitting in it.
Harris’ campaign has been neatly packaged and immaculately sanitized, and I honestly didn’t expect for it to be anything else. We’ve seen Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Mama Tina in a stadium of 30,000 people in Houston, Texas advocating for a new way forward via a Harris presidency. We’ve seen Harris looking capable and unshakeable on the debate stage. We’ve seen campaign ads with clear messaging and powerful narratives about abortion access as reproductive freedom and the promise of an opportunity economy. We’ve seen her send clear messaging about being the penicillin for a nation afflicted by Donald Trump. We have also seen her repeat that she does not support an arms embargo on Israel as the Israeli government and armed forces attempt to lay waste to the people and land of Palestine.
When Harris entered the race for president, something was affirmed to me that I already knew: Black women are more than capable of running this country. Well, of course we are. We have been fueling the labor to maintain it since before its inception. It is not a radical idea to me that a Black woman can reach the highest office in this nation. We are socialized to be resilient, hard-working, and high-achieving. We are also socialized to know the essential truths about this country and to work to keep it going anyway.
What I do find interesting, though, is what potentially having a Black woman in the office of president means given the nature of the office and what it represents. In a country with a fickle conscience—a conscience that loves to forget its violent shortcomings and often forgoes moral high ground—is it really possible for the conscience of this country to be wiped clean by electing a Black woman to be president of the United States?
Is that something we desire as a society?
For Black women to do the dirty work of wiping the slate clean?
Are we as Black women truly willing to be sacrificial lambs for the United States?
When we say that ‘she can beat Trump,’ are we really saying that she will help us feel so comfortable that we forget where we are and what has been done, and the work we have to do?
Professor Erica R. Edwards has a poignant and nuanced lecture about her book “The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of U.S. Empire.”
Give it a look.
Natalie J. James is a writer and Indianapolis native. You can find more of her work at https://thesourceoflight.substack.com.
