Photo: Kamala Harris smiles while speaking during a launch rally for her first ever U.S. presidential campaign at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, Calif. on Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
While most eyes were focused on the relatively close race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that saw the incumbent President deposed, some have overlooked the new Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is set to become the first female and the first person of a non-white background to fill the position of vice-president.
Harris is of a mixed Jamaican-American and Indian background and served as California's Attorney General from 2011 until being elected as a Senator in 2017. She was born in 1964 to an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican father. 'Kamala' in Sanskrit means' lotus flower'. She attended Howard University, which she graduated with a degree in political science and economics. She then obtained a law degree from the University of California. She is only the second black woman to be elected to the United States senate.
Harris had originally run against Joe Biden as nominee for the Democratic Presidential candidacy but was then appointed by Biden as his running mate soon after he won the Democratic nomination. The two, despite their now close ties, clashed on the campaign trail over Biden's past voting record on issues of race. While Harris said she did not believe Biden was a racist, she did criticise him for his work with two Southern pro-segregationist Senators in the past. She also criticised Biden's refusal to endorse 'busing', a process where poor Black children were bussed to schools in wealthier white areas. She said during a debate:
"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day, and that little girl was me. I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly."
Biden denies that he opposed busing and merely wished to see it enacted in a different manner.
Harris herself has come under criticism for her work as a prosecuting lawyer in California. She refused to advance reform and parole programs for a number of non-violent offenders, refused to allow DNA evidence that could prove the innocence of a man on Death Row, and championed bills criminalising sex-workers.
Californian attorney and community organizer, Nnenna Amuchie, said of Harris's record as a lawyer:
"As someone from California, I am far too familiar with Harris' violent and anti-black record. For years she has had the opportunity to apologize and repair the harm she caused to poor black communities. Instead, she learned into and embraced her 'top cop' record which is irreconcilable with a post-Obama Black Lives Matter era where young people are deeply educated and informed about systemic racism, and the ways black politicians have been complicit in it."
The United States and the world now waits to see what the next 4 years of a Biden/Harris presidency will look like. Biden, at 78, will be the oldest President ever sworn into office and, should he be unable to fulfil his duties, it will be Harris who becomes President.
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