Senator Kamala Harris selected as running mate for Biden.

Kamala Harris was not my preferred pick for Biden's VP - not even close. The best that can be said is she's less bad than Warren or Karen Bass would have been. The Biden-Harris ticket is a lesser evil in my view than Trump-Pence. But that's damning with faint praise, given how awful the latter is (indeed, they manage to be worse than Harris even on many of the law enforcement issues where she has a problematic history).

Here, I want to note a positive aspect of the nomination that few have focused on (indeed, the lack of focus is exactly what makes it positive):

There has been little or no controversy over the fact that Harris is a black woman married to a white man. Not so long ago, there would have been considerable deal of hostility to this, among both whites and blacks. Barack Obama's biographer David Garrow recounts how the young Obama chose not to marry his longtime white girlfriend in part because he feared it would be bad for his political career. Not only prejudiced whites, but some blacks might have objected (the latter because they could have perceived him as somehow betraying the black community).

Today, Harris' interracial marriage is basically a non-issue. That's real progress! In the long run, racial and ethnic groups coexist together more easily if intermarriage between them is seen as basically normal, and no big deal.

In addition to being white, Harris' husband is also Jewish (which she herself is not). This aspect, too, would have been controversial a generation or two ago. Today, it raises even fewer hackles than the interracial aspect. I myself am a Jew married to a non-Jew, and it caused virtually no controversy among any of our family members and acquaintances. But it's more telling when there's a lack of backlash to such intermarriage for people who are much more in the public eye than I am.

None of this proves that Harris was the right choice for VP (I think she wasn't) or even that she's a minimally acceptable one (just barely, in my view). But it's a sign of progress, nonetheless.

Yes, I know Harris is also part Indian, and therefore can be seen as Asian-American as well as black. In practice, however, the "one drop rule" norm of American racial perception ensures anyone with significant African ancestry will be perceived primarily as black. Recall what happened when Tiger Woods tried to persuade people to consider him a "Cablinasian." This social norm - a vestige of slavery and segregation - is problematic in many ways. But it exists, and probably won't disappear, at least not for some time to come.