The much-anticipated election process has concluded, with the entire world watching Joe Biden has successfully won the 59th presidential election of the United States. This election process was no ordinary affair. The entire world was invested in the 2020 American elections. The reason being, Donald Trump. With so many complaints and issues registered against the Trump government and him acknowledging none, we knew that the election process would by no means be one-sided. Also, Kanye West too jumped into the election process, although for a short period. But after all the troubles and trials Donald Trump and his band is out of the White House and filling the presidential position is Joe Biden and the vice-president post goes to Kamala Harris.
Apart from the “Anti-Trump” success in the election, there is one more reason as to why this election has been epic and would go down in history, that reason is Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris is the 49th vice president of the United States and is also the first female vice president. That’s not all, she is also the first African American and Asian American vice president of the United States. She is an exceptional candidate, which is why a single paragraph does no justice to this woman.
Who is Kamala Harris?
Kamala Devi Harris was born in 1964 October 20th in Oakland, California. Both her parents were immigrants from different countries. Her father Donald Harris was born and raised in Jamaica and had later moved to America and worked as an economics professor at Stanford University. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan was a well-known breast cancer researcher who had immigrated from India. Kamala is a mixed race child with both African and Asian gene.
Kamala’s mother who was a Hindu raised her daughter’s according to the Hindu beliefs, making sure they get to know their relatives back in India. Kamala’s parents separated when she was 7 years old and so Kamala moved with her mother and sister to Montreal, Canada at the age of 12. During her time in Canada, she learned to speak French and showed an early interest in political correctness by protesting against a building owner who wouldn’t allow kids to play in the lawn. Kamala attended Westmount High School in Canada and returned to America to attend Howard University where she studied economics and political science. After this, she attended the University of California, where she got her Juris Doctor in 1989. In 1990 she passed the bar and joined the prosecutor’s office in Alameda County, Oakland as an assistant district attorney focusing mainly on sex crimes. Her decision to work at the attorney general’s office led her family to be a little sceptical since this work of line has its fair share of bad press. However, this did not bother Harris as she wanted to focus on changing the system from the inside. Kamala dated Willie Brown in 1994, this relationship did get it’s a fair share of attention as Brown was a prominent figure in the California politics and was also 30 years elder than Harris. Brown appointed Kamala to the Medical assistance commission and the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board making her $80000 richer. Brown was elected Mayor in 1995 after which Kamala’s relationship with Brown came to an end. Kamala was further recruited by a former colleague to the district attorney’s office in San Francisco where she worked for reorienting law enforcement approach towards teenage prostitution in the city. She looked at the girls as victims rather than prostitutes. While working in San Francisco Harris courted moneyed elites some of whom would later provide the financial backing required in her first-ever campaign for office in 2003. She ran for district attorney against her former boss and incumbent Terence Hallinan. She won the election with 56.5% votes and successfully became the first-ever black women to be elected as district attorney in California. During her time as the district attorney in San Francisco, the conviction rate increased by 15% from 52% to 67%. Her journey was however not a complete none controversial affair. In 2004 Harris received a lot of backlashes when she did not pursue a death penalty to a man for killing a San Francisco police officer. Some much so that during the funeral senator Dianne Feinstein criticised Kamala while delivering the eulogy, which led to a standing ovation by many police officers who were present. Her time as the District Attorney was a bumpy ride, she was under the scrutiny when a technician stole cocaine and mishandled evidence from the DA’s crime lab due to which thousands of drug-related crimes had to be thrown out due to lack of evidence. Kamala has also been good friends with Barack Obama since he first ran for Senate in 2004. She was also among the notable California officeholders to show her support towards Obama during the presidential elections of 2008. She also supported a law in 2010 which gave birth to a lot of controversies. The law stated truancy as a misdemeanour and regarded those parents punishable who wouldn’t send their kids to school. The law had positive results, truancy rates dropped considerably, although this law faced a lot of criticism. During her second term as attorney general in San Francisco, she ran for California attorney general. Only a few thought she would win the race since she was a woman of colour and had opposed to the death penalty and her opponent was Steve Cooley who was a popular Republican who has served as the Los Angeles DA. The winning percentage was so close that Steve Cooley delivered a winning speech after three weeks when all the ballots were counted, Harris was declared for the win by 0.8%. One of her shining moments as the attorney general of California was when she refused to settle for a $4 billion in the national mortgage settlement. She was initially accused of grandstanding, these statements were later squashed when she got $20 million for California in the national mortgage settlement. In 2014 she married Doug Emhoff a corporate lawyer from Los Angeles in a small and intimate ceremony which was officiated by her sister. In 2016 Kamala won the US senate race by defeating a fellow democrat candidate. Kamala Harris has strived hard for the betterment of the society and has voiced her opinions on a lot of issues irrespective of her opponent. She was quick to call out Biden during a presidential debate on racism. She might be the first female vice president of the United States but she will definitely pave way for others like her.
Conclusion
There you have it a short insight into the life of Kamala Harris. She is an inspiration for the entire world irrespective her read, caste or colour and lastly, we can definitely rely on Harris to make America great again.