Washington.- “If you don’t get a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” said African-American Congressman Shirley Chisholm, the first woman to run for a Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidency and whose legacy has made it possible today to be an Asian woman, Kamala Harris, an aspiring vice president, and who knows if one day, a white house tenant. Much has rained since Chisholm (1924-2005), also the first African-American woman to come to Congress, would mark a milestone by running for the Democratic run to the presidency in 1972, which eventually won a white man, George McGovern.
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Since then, the U.S. has had the first black president, Barack Obama (2009-2017), but has never had a woman running the country and not even in the Vice Presidency.
Obama was america’s black president of the United States. / Photo: EFE.
FROM CHISHOLM TO HARRISThe professor in purdue University (Indiana)’s Department of Political Science Nadia Brown explains, in statements to Efe, that Harris is yet one more link in Chisholm’s legacy: “Kamala definitely rides on her shoulders. Shirley Chisholm was just as ambitious, qualified, intelligent, compassionate and caring. The difference is that times have changed.”
This 1971 archive photo shows Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. / Photograph: AP.
Showing that change is the rise that movements like Black Lives Matter (black lives matter), in the face of police violence against African-Americans, or the feminist #MeToo (me too), against sexual abuse.” The Black Lives Matter protests have really highlighted systemic racism and racial inequalities. We have seen the highest number of protests in U.S. history, with continued protests over the murder of George Floyd or the non-conviction of police officers who killed Breonna Taylor,” Brown.La teacher was referring to the wave of protests and riots that triggered Floyd’s last May murder at the hands of a white policeman in Minesota, who have “woke up” the country in the face of racial injustices.” If (the virtual Democratic presidential candidate) Joe Biden had chosen someone who did not have an African background, he would have shown that the (Democratic) party is deaf – Brown stresses – especially because black communities are the ones who disproportionately vote for Democrats, and this election will be lost or won by black voter turnout.” A BLACK VOTER MESSAGE CHOICEIn fact, according to Andra Gillespie, a professor in the Department of Political Science at Emory University, Georgia, if Biden had not chosen an African-American as a running mate, there would have been quite a bit of frustration among this community and possibly her vote would have been demobilized.” One of the issues that have arisen in relation to Black Lives Matter is the idea that the Democratic Party relies on African-Americans to win the election,” Gillespie reflects.” They are 13% of the population, about a fifth or a quarter of Democratic voters,” the teacher points out, who adds that, in the case of African-Americans, only 4% voted for the current president, Donald Trump, in 2016.In the face of these proportions, Biden seeks to mobilize the black community vote to counter the complaints of those who point out that the Democratic Party takes for guaranteed suffrage and who call for African Americans, especially women, in important positions. Therefore, despite the novelty of the proposal, Harris’ election is no surprise in terms of election strategy, nor if his career path is taken into account, as a senator, and district attorney and california general.THE STRONG POINT AND THE WEAK OF KAMALAEse past as prosecutor is his strong and at the same time weak point, as he has unleashed criticism for his history of convictions, which have particularly affected African-Americans. Gillespie sees that this factor can play in his favor, for example,that African-American candidates have traditionally been demonized under the theory that they are more “soft” against crime, based on racist stereotypes that “blacks tend more toward criminal behavior,” which Trump is trying to use against Democrats in general. However, the expert emphasizes, “the idea of nominating a prosecutor to serve as vice president really mitigates President Trump’s argument by saying that Joe Biden is going to be soft about crime.” Whether her past as a prosecutor serves her past or not, both experts predict that Harris will be the target of insults and disqualifications, as was the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, Hillary Clinton, simply because she is a woman, and even if she may be worse because she was of Jamaican and Indian descent. TRUMP HAS ALREADY STARTED THE MACHIST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HARRISBrown gives “for sure” that the aspiring vice president will receive “racist and sexist insults”: “They have already thrown wrong on her by Republicans and in particular Donald Trump, who have already employed (the term) ‘disgusting woman’.” That’s a qualifier that the representative used against Clinton during the 2016 campaign and now uses against Harris, considering that he has been disrespectful for his incisive questions to his administration officials during Senate hearings.Brown anticipates that in the coming months there will be sexist phrases like the ones Clinton had to endure , of the type “should stay at home”, although he believes it will be different when the subject of race enters, as many racial stereotypes about black and Asian women will come to light. Despite possible setbacks, Harris’ stage appearance is a milestone, and both experts do not rule out that it can open the way for the U.S. to have a president in the future, perhaps a departure from the 2024 elections. Gillespie believes she might even be an African-American president, and why not Harris herself, as her election as Biden’s running mate is going to raise her profile and she was aspiring to the Democratic presidential nomination until last December when she retired because she had not raised enough funds.” There is no reason to think that she does not yet hold those (presidential) aspirations and would not present herself. Something interesting is that in the nomination race there were some Democrats who made them comment on whether or not it was too ambitious, and that certainly made a lot of eyebrows raise,” she lays. Harris’ vindication of his roots can also help to modify mental schemes.” Many people had in her head that the first U.S. president was going to be a white woman who was going to reflect America’s racial majority and the dynamics of those in power- she points out, but what Kamala Harris shows is that the first U.S. president might be not white but a woman of color.”
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