Alexandra jaffe
Kathleen Ronayne
01/20/2021 15:01
Clarín.com
World
Updated 01/20/2021 18:22
For more than two centuries, the highest levels of American power have been dominated by men ... almost all white.
That ended on Wednesday. Kamala Harris will be
the first vice president
and the first black woman of South Asian descent to hold that position.
His rise is historic in any context, another time when a tenacious border disappears, broadening the idea of what is possible in American politics.
But it is particularly significant because Harris is taking office at a time of
profound importance
, as Americans vie for the role of institutional racism and face a pandemic that has disproportionately devastated black and brown communities.
Those who know Harris say he will bring an important - and often absent - perspective to the debates on how to overcome the many obstacles that await the new government.
"In many people's lives, we've experienced a segregated America," said Lateefah Simon, a civil rights advocate and longtime friend and disciple of Harris.
"Now we will have a black woman who will enter the White House not as a guest but as second in command of the free world."
Harris - the daughter of immigrants,
stepmother of two
and the wife of a Jewish man - "embodies the story of
intersectionality
of many Americans who are never seen or heard."
Harris, 56, is serving as vice presidency just four years after first coming to Washington as a senator from California, where she was previously attorney general and district attorney for San Francisco.
He had hoped to work with a White House in the hands of Hillary Clinton, but President Donald Trump's victory quickly gave a glimpse of things in the nation's capital and set the stage for the rise of a new class of Democratic stars.
Kamala Harris.
His inauguration comes nearly two years after Harris launched his own presidential candidacy on Martin Luther King Jr.Day in 2019. His campaign lost momentum before the primary voting began, but Harris's rise continued when Joe Biden launched it. chose as a running mate last August.
Harris had been close friends with Beau Biden, Joe Biden's eldest son and a former Delaware attorney general who died of cancer in 2015.
Assumption ceremony activities will include allusions to her historical role and personal history.
Harris was sworn in before Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first woman of color to serve on that high court.
Harris used two Bibles, one belonging to Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall,
the late civil rights icon whom Harris often cites as inspiration, and another belonging to Regina Shelton, a longtime friend of his family who helped raise him. of Harris during his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Howard University drumming group, where Harris studied, joined the presidential escort.
Celebrations for Kamala Harris in India.
Photo: EFE
“We are turning the page on a very dark period in our history,” said Long Beach, California Mayor Robert Garcia, a Harris ally.
Garcia said he hoped that as Democrats celebrate the end of Trump's presidency,
the importance of the inauguration of the country's first female vice
president will
not be overlooked
.
"It is a very important historical moment that should also be highlighted," he said.
Harris has often reflected on his rise in politics by recalling
the lessons of his mother
, who taught him to embrace a great cause and face adversity.
Harris has often reflected on his rise in politics by recalling his mother's lessons.
Photo: AFP
"They raised me not to hear a 'no.'
Let me be clear on this point.
Not that they said to me, 'Ah, the possibilities are enormous.
You can do whatever you want, '”he recalled during an interview on“ CBS Sunday Morning ”that aired on Sunday.
"No, they brought me up to understand that many people will tell you: 'It's impossible', but that I shouldn't listen to them."
While Biden took center stage in Wednesday's inauguration ceremonies, Harris's inauguration carried
more symbolic weight
than any other vice president of modern times.
She
will broaden
the definition of who comes to power in American politics, said Martha S. Jones, a Johns Hopkins University history professor and author of “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All ”(Vanguard: How Black Women Breaked Down Barriers, Got the Vote and Insisted on Equality for All).
Those who want to understand Harris and connect with her will have to learn what it means to graduate from a historically black college rather than one from the Ivy League.
They will have to understand Harris traditions, such as Diwali, or the festival of lights, Jones said.
President and Vice, at the top of Time.
Photo: archive
"People will have to
adapt to her
instead of
her adapting to
others," Jones said.
Her election as vice president should be the beginning of the appointment of
black women to leadership positions
, Jones said, particularly after the role black women played in organizing and promoting voter turnout in the November elections.
"We will all see what happens to the kinds of skills and views of black women in politics when they are allowed to lead those skills and views," Jones said.
The authors are Associated Press journalists
Translation: Elisa Carnelli
ap
Look also
Who is Kamala Harris, the woman who will make history in the White House
What were Donald Trump's mistakes that led him to lose reelection?
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