On Thursday night, August 23, 2024, Kamala Devi Harris became the first non-white woman in American political history to be nominated by a major political party for the office of President of the United States of America. Harris who is the sitting Vice President of the USA, had already broken through the proverbial social and political glass-ceiling in 2019 when she was asked by Joseph Robinette Biden to join him on the 2020 Democratic ticket as his Vice President. This elevation gave Harris a leg-up on former Secretary of State in the 2008 Obama Administration, Hilary Rodham-Clinton, who had shattered this glass-ceiling in 2015, when the Democratic Party handed her its nomination to contest for the office of President in the 2016 elections. At the time, Clinton’s nomination had been seen as providing a long overdue victory for women in America, who had waged a long and relentless struggle to be able to vote in political elections since 1840, and after eighty years won this right when the 19th Amendment became part of the US Constitution on August 26, 1920. Kamala Harris’ nomination came three days shy of the 104th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage in America. Early Years
Kamala Devi Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California to parents Donald J. Harris and Shyamala Gopalan who had met as students as part of a Black student group at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962. Harris was an economics doctoral student from Jamaica; Gopalan came from India to study nutrition and endocrinology. Gopalan was welcomed by the group as a person of color, was intrigued by the ideas espoused by the group. The two soon became something of a power couple in the civil rights movement on campus. Their marriage in 1963, produced their first daughter, Kamala, who was born in 1964. Education & Political upbringing
Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. She began her law career in the office of the district attorney (DA) of Alameda County, before being recruited to the San Francisco DA’s Office and later the city attorney of San Francisco’s office. She was elected DA of San Francisci in 2003, and elected attorney general of California in 2010 and reelected in 2014. In 2012 Kamala Harris delivered a memorable address at the Democratic National Convention which served to raise her national profile as she was now seen as a rising star within the Democratic party. Her elevated profile led to her recruitment to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, who was retiring. In early 2015 Harris declared her candidacy, and on the campaign trail she called for immigration and criminal-justice reform, an increase in the minimum wage, as well as the protection of women’s reproductive rights. She easily won the 2016 election defeating Loretta Sanchez to become the second Black woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Advocacy
As a senator, Kamala Harris advocated for stricter gun-control laws, the DREAM Act, Federal legalization of Cannabis, and Healthcare and Taxation reforms. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of individual nominees for the Trump Administration during Senate hearings, including Brett Kavanaugh, the second of Trump’s Supreme Court Nominees,
Kamala Harris sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in the 2020 Presidential election but withdrew before the primaries. She would later be chosen by Biden as his running mate, and their ticket defeated the incumbent president and vice president, Trump/Pence in the 2020 election.
Gender and Race-The Elephants in the Room
It is important to recognize the elephants in the room in socio-political America, overt racism, and misogyny. Kamala Harris represents a perfect fit. As a half Black-Jamaican, half-East Asian (Indian), she is neck-deep into the racial stereotype that has girded America for decades. As a woman, her gender serves a ball-and-chain in a country which despite women comprising approximately 51 percent of the American population, women are significantly under-represented in the nation’s politics. Of the 535 members of Congress and the Senate, women represent only 26.5 percent. Harris being the sitting Vice President has given her a significant advantage in combating this stereotype. She also has the advantage of having not only a profile of service, but also the concrete profile of an American that came from middle-class America, and one who earned her spurs through hard work and scholarship. Reinvigorated Democrats In the month since she has received the baton from Joe Biden to lead the Democrats to re-election, Kamala Harris’ presence has returned a significantly reinvigorated political party, with record-breaking (half a billion dollars) fund raising, record numbers of volunteer sign-ups, including record-breaking crowds at rallies. All of this has completely confounded her opponents and critics including the traditional media, completely unaccustomed to a secondary role, where the candidate now calls the shots and determining the talking points. In delivering her acceptance speech at the DNC on Thursday night, Harris critiqued the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic and other issues, arguing that it had failed to lead effectively and failed to bring the American people together. She emphasized the need for unity in addressing the nation’s challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, economic inequality, and the interference in the Rights of women to make their health care decisions. Harris spoke about her commitment to fighting for justice and equality, drawing on her background as a prosecutor and her lifelong advocacy for civil rights.
In laying out her vision for the Future, Harris advocated for a more equitable and just America, focusing on the importance of healthcare, economic opportunities, and a stronger social safety net. Gender-politics
With just a little over two months to go before the November 5th Presidential Elections, it would serve us well to remember that political power in America has been owned by rich White Anglo-Saxon Protestant men since 1776. The genetic nexus between the political and economic levers of the country has long since been made and these individuals are in no hurry to relinquish that strangle-hold. Among this group it has long since been held that women are not their political equals and despite advances in education and technology this situation has been maintained over the past 104 years through the systematic manipulation of social and cultural levers that are designed to position women to see themselves as less than capable. These power-brokers during the lead up to the 2016 elections used the traditional media to diminish Hilary Clinton’s value as a viable candidate and in true American style, the pool of uneducated largely culture-driven voting pool has given some level of value to those arguments. The real test of Kamala Harris’ viability as a Presidential candidate will come once the dust has settled now that the Convention has ended. A Challenge of History
It has taken the country all of 248 years to slowly dismember this gendering sexist behemoth within American politics, in much the same way that 60 years after its passage we are still talking about Civil Rights in America. Maybe it is time that we open our eyes…Black, White and all other Races and recognize that Women’s Rights are also Civil Rights. Maybe then we will be able to appreciate the historic value of August 23, 2024. In the meantime, my money is on Kamala Devi Harris to become America’s 47th President.
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