One of the first emails I received after news broke of President Biden’s decision to withdraw from this year’s presidential election and Kamala Harris’s likely role as his replacement focused, as many have, on her physical identity. Of course, and particularly because of the historic nature of the ceilings this impressive leader has already broken, this makes sense. But, even though I have almost always tended to lean left politically, I have mixed feelings about such emphases on external characteristics above policy, generally speaking, as I believe it’s an optics-first approach to decision-making that has seemed to get us, as a country, into so much trouble over the past several decades.

Of course it is good news when diverse candidates break barriers. But, in my opinion at least, there needs to remain a proportional appreciation for, and acknowledgment of, other considerations, too.

I still feel that a focus on race practically alone over the past several years as a response to the women’s movement in corporate journalism, in what I believe was an attempt to stop solutions proposed during the movement from being heard, has had complex effects as people grapple with the fact that racial justice was and continues to be monumentally important and necessary but is not the only problem facing the country. And I continue to feel that an answer to a communications infrastructure in which corporate journalism PR departments outrank newsrooms could be a communications infrastructure in which newsrooms outrank corporate journalism PR departments – provided a public dialogue about the entanglement of media and Wall Street is permitted. (Today it still feels to me like claims that all societal challenges are solely the result of historical racism are little more than code for hey, stop talking about the relationship between journalism and the stock market sector; don’t you know my kids’ private school bills are paid for by corporate welfare? or, sometimes simply long-live misogyny!)

I remember, several years ago now, when I had an opportunity to teach for a short period in Kenya, noting how bursting with pride many of the children seemed considering the lineage of America’s then-president. And it was for good reason. But I still wondered at how little acknowledgment the parent who raised him seemed to receive in comparison. “And your president is from where?” students would ask in their undeniably charming but, still, somewhat giddily self-satisfied elementary schooler way. Hawai’i, kid, I was tempted to deadpan, before remembering how much better it was for them to be a little over-, rather than under, -confident. You’re right, I would answer, in a complimentary and enthusiastic tone. His dad is from Kenya.

More recently, I’ve remembered the college entrance journey of one of my good high school friends and how aggressively competitive university admissions officers had pursued her. (She did not need to go to them.) A year younger, and beginning to realize how limiting financial and other previously unconsidered factors felt, I remember once blurting out during my own experience that maybe one of the reasons she’d been so welcomed by Harvard was that one of her parents was an African immigrant. It hadn’t seemed to matter at all how she had been raised, or by whom. But, even today, my eyes still well up when I remember the immediacy and forthrightness of her response, “I know that!” because my friend was incredibly bright, thrived at that school, and went on to become a successful physician. What I hadn’t considered, of course, is what her example could potentially do for other people who looked like her.

My feelings about the need for a public conversation about the merger of the journalism and Wall Street sectors have not changed. And, as much as I greatly respect and appreciate the remarkable presidency of Barack Obama, I still feel that what at least seemed like the first Nobel Prize for marketing near the beginning of his first term marked a transition that is still ongoing to a worryingly optics-first approach to governance appraisal. It wasn’t that I did not believe former President Obama could well be worthy of a Nobel prize; I just felt an optics-first approach would eventually bite us. (Today, and as marketing-focused journalism corporations have in many ways taken over the roles formerly held by world leaders, sometimes I still wonder about the possibility of additional countries going the way of Ukraine after it, from what I understand, arguably installed a conspicuously large number of television production professionals to administrative roles after the, still obviously extraordinary, Volodomyr Zelenskiy was elected to office. What value is there in having world-class PR in a country with plummeting currency rates and the gross under-valuation of human life itself?)

It isn’t at all that appearances don’t matter. When it comes to the topic of physical characteristics that have historically been used as the basis for discrimination, they matter a great deal. But I still believe the ability of publicly-traded journalism corporations to ensure informed and balanced debate is doubtful at best and that the question of the advisability of relying on them in perpetuity needs to be disentangled from some of the policies for which they’ve advocated – even when this has been helpfully done – in recent years. To critique these entities’ business models is not to critique the other social justice movements with which they’ve aligned since the women’s movement in corporate journalism was evidently seen as posing an existential threat. Like a dinosaur trying to hide behind a tree, I believe the corporate journalism sector may simply need to step to the side now and allow itself to be seen for what it is.

I believe such a dialogue is appropriate during a presidential campaign, especially as, this year, we do have a contender talking openly about Wall Street’s increasingly direct effects on government. And, while I do not advocate for any particular political candidate, I feel it is self-evident he belongs on at least one national debate stage.

When I read this week’s celebratory email from an entrepreneur remarking that “Madame President” has a nice ring to it, I thought, can’t we make key policy issues a higher priority? How can we possibly kick the can of a national debate about the role of the publicly-traded journalism brand in the disintegration of the economic health of America for yet another four years? Do economics not matter at all?

I still wonder all of these things and hope to help encourage constructive dialogue about them. But I should probably acknowledge what I also thought:

She’s right. But maybe Harris and Kennedy could at least have a conversation … preferably on television and perhaps on an at least remotely legitimate topic?