Kamala Harris Is Not Your Mammy — Or 'Momala'

Drew Barrymore asked the vice president to be "Momala" of the country, and I really wish she hadn’t.

I never know what to make of well-intentioned white liberals. They always seem so sincere despite their inability to recognize just how much they benefit from the status quo. The problem has always been what to do about it. If they renounce their privilege, it feels performative, and if they use it to advance people of color, then it feels like ham-fisted pandering.

Enter Drew Barrymore (always Drew Barrymore), who, on Monday, interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on “The Drew Barrymore Show” and did the thing where she sits uncomfortably close to her guest during the interview. If you were at the ATM and someone got as close to you as Barrymore gets to her guests, you’d assume you were about to get jumped.

Anyway, Barrymore was sitting there under the vice president’s nostrils, and she was doing the white liberal thing of earnestness through sympathetic facial expression, and the two started bonding over being stepparents.

“I love Disney. However, Disney kind of messed that up,” Harris said. “You know, for a lot of us over the years, [there was] the evil stepparent.”

Harris shared that her bonus children call her “Momala” ― you know, a portmanteau of “Mom” and “Kamala.”