Kamala Harris: Role Models

Continuing with my role model series on my blog, I wanted to dedicate a post to Joe Biden's pick for his vice-president Kamala Harris. Regardless of your political affiliations, I wanted to inform readers of her life and the struggles she faced and faces with an opposition of Trump- a role model for adversity. A black woman who has Indian heritage and was guided by the values of her Indian family. 

Early Life 

Harris was born on October 20th, 1964 in Oakland in California. Her mother was a biologist and had arrived in the US from India in 1959 as a graduate student and received a PHD in 1964. Her father, was a professor emeritus of economics, who arrived in the US from British Jamaica in 1961 and received a PHD in economics in 1966. Harris grew up going to both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. Her parents divorced when she was 7 and it was said that when she visited her father on the weekends, the neighbors' kids were not allowed to play with her or her sister because they were black. 

In her 2019 autobiography, she wrote how her Indian mother raised her with an appreciation for Indian culture, cooking her daughters Indian food, giving them Indian jewelry, and taking them on trips abroad to visit extended family. But Harris wrote that she was also keenly aware that the world would perceive her and her sister as Black women first and foremost: "My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women." And so she did. 

After high school, Harris attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington D.C. While at Howard, she interned as a mail room clerk for California senator Alan Cranston, chaired the economics society and led the debate team. Harris then returned to California to attend law school. In 1990, she was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California and in 1998, San Francisco district attorney recruited Harris as an assistant district attorney. In her role, she was the first African American and first woman to serve as California's attorney general. 

Career

In her career, she has faced scrutiny over not seeking the death penalty. She considers the death penalty flawed on many levels, both high-minded and pragmatic: racial inequities being one and the cost of pursuing the case being another. She said: "My entire career I have been opposed - personally opposed - to the death penalty. And that has never changed."

This was put to the test when she was an attorney general in San Francisco and just three months into the job she was faced with a case where a 22 year old gang member named David Hill shot and killed a young, on-duty police officer, Isaac Espinoza. Calls for the death penalty rang out from community members and politicians alike. Two days after Espinoza's death and two days before his funeral. Harris held a joint press conference where she announced that she would not seek the death penalty for Hill. This decision ignited outrage and blindsided Espinoza's family, who later told CNN they did not know of Harris' decision until she announced it publicly. 

In 2010, Harris ascended to a larger political stage, becoming California's top prosecutor. Harris wrote in her book, "The Truths We Hold" that she faced scrutiny for her anti-death penalty stance her whole public career. She stated that she faced criticism for being "a woman who is a minority who is anti-death penalty." This makes her a role model. 

Harris herself told the Washington Post in 2019 that when she entered politics, she felt pressure to define herself: "When I first ran for office that was one of the things that I struggled with, which is that you are forced through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created." She further added: "My point was: I am who I am. I'm good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I'm fine with it." 

Harris' nomination as a vice president has the potential to mobilise South Asian American voters. Her multiracial identity and legal background make her a role model by inspiring Indian Americans to run for office. She continuously faces criticism with Indian media pondering the question of whether Harris is Indian enough and she has simultaneously been accused of not being "Black enough." In 2019, accusations appeared on Twitter that Harris was not an "American Black" because her father was a Jamaican immigrant, rather than a descendant of enslaved people. Similar attacks have occured since her nomination, with Newsweek publishing an op-ed pushing birther-style questions about her citizenship and eligibility to be vice president. 

Harris is carrying the burden of even more expectations on her shoulders as a multiracial woman. When a woman runs for president, she is expected to represent all women; when a Black person runs for office, they are under pressure to represent all Black people. Now imagine what Harris is facing as a woman of mixed racial identity. 

President Donald Trump's campaign is struggling to define Kamala Harris. And without a clear message, Trump has reverted to his usual playbook, resorting to sexist and racist attacks. He has repeatedly called Harris "nasty". He tweeted: "The 'suburban housewife' will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!". 

Harris has took moderate stances over her career on issues such as health care and law enforcement, which is making it more difficult to Trump to depict her. The senior campaign adviser Katrina Pierson, said in the Trump campaign's statement: "Clearly, Phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party." 

Trump is ultimately failing to put Harris in the category of radical left as she is not. The Trump campaign has been plotting for almost two years to characterise the Democratic nominee and running mate as beholden to the radical left. Whilst this has worked with Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, it is not proving extremely difficult. Despite this, Trump is continuing to push the narrative that Harris is a leftist pushing a radical agenda. Yet Harris pushes on as the first Black women to be on a major party ticket in history. 

She is a role model by sending shockwaves throughout the political world, illuminating the moral necessity of racial equality as Black women identified both with her struggle and triumph in cheering for a woman who could soon be Vice President.