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Who is Kamala Harris, the first black running mate of a presidential candidate?

2020-08-11T21:33:57.850Z


Senator, former California prosecutor, Kamala Harris has accumulated pioneer titles since the start of her career. She becomes the first black female running mate of a presidential candidate.


Tired of speculation that saw her in running mate even before Joe Biden entered the campaign, Kamala Harris had joked that the former vice-president would instead make, if she won the White House, an "excellent" right-hand man. With a brilliant career, worthy of the best American dream despite controversial chapters, the 55-year-old senator who dreamed of becoming the first black president of the United States will finally try in November, at her side, to become the first female vice-president. president.

Read also: United States: Joe Biden chooses Senator Kamala Harris as running mate for the presidential election

But with still, no doubt, an eye on the presidential election of 2024 and the hope of breaking, then, the ultimate glass ceiling. “My mother used to say to me: Kamala, maybe you will be the first to accomplish many things. Make sure you're not the last, ” Kamala Harris liked to repeat during her ill-fated campaign for the Democratic nomination. Since the beginning of her career, this daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother has accumulated the titles of pioneer. After two terms as a prosecutor in San Francisco (2004-2011), she was twice elected attorney general of California (2011-2017), becoming the first woman, but also the first black person, to head the judicial services. of the most populous state in the country. Then in January 2017, she was sworn in to the Senate in Washington, registering as the first woman from South Asia and only the second black senator in American history.

Kamala Harris knows the Democratic candidate for the White House well, whom she sometimes simply calls "Joe" in public, because she was close to her son Beau Biden, who died of cancer in 2015. But she had surprised by attacking him. with virulence during the first Democratic debate, in 2019, on his past positions regarding the policies of racial desegregation in the 1970s. After finally dropping out of the primary before the first votes, Kamala Harris had rallied to Joe Biden in March. Some allies of the former vice-president had not forgiven him for not showing "remorse" after his criticisms during the debate, and had warned the old lion of politics against an overly "ambitious" running mate . Enough to boost the support of Kamala Harris, who cried out sexism.

A "tough" ex-prosecutor

Kamala Harris grew up in Oakland, progressive 1960s California, proud of the civil rights struggle of her immigrant parents: a father professor of economics, and a mother, now deceased, a breast cancer researcher. . She was educated at Howard University, founded in Washington to accommodate African-American students in the midst of segregation, and regularly recalls her membership in the "Alpha Kappa Alpha" black student association . Married since August 2014 to a lawyer father of two children, Kamala Harris puts her family forward: she had chosen her sister Maya to lead her unsuccessful candidacy for primary.

However, she is not unanimous in her native California. From South Carolina to Michigan, black and progressive voters lament his reputation for harshness. In particular, her past initiatives as a prosecutor to punish harshly small crimes which, according to her critics, affected mainly minorities. "In California, Kamala Harris had the reputation of a prosecutor who waited rather than to show the way, who only moved on controversial subjects when she saw that they were politically viable", summarized again last month the daily Sacramento Bee. In 2004, she opposed the relaxation of minimum sentences, which she nevertheless assured to want to reform when she campaigned last year for the Democratic nomination in the presidential election. In 2010, she simply burst out laughing at a question about the legalization of recreational cannabis, a very iconic issue in California, which ended up adopting it in 2018.

Kamala Harris certainly did not leave an image of a "progressive prosecutor" , contrary to how she herself had called her record. "It is seen by some, especially among black youth, as part of the problem, not the solution," warns David Barker, professor of political science at American University. It remains to be seen whether she will now manage to mobilize this potentially key electorate to enter, alongside Joe Biden, the White House.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-08-11

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