Kamala Harris: A giant leap for humankind
Loading player...
Half a century after the US landed men on the moon, a black woman is the nominee for vice-president, thus standing on the threshold of becoming president. As a measure of human progress, the first is to physics what the second is to social equality. Yet each is alike in the distance travelled and the obstacles overcome.
Joe Biden vowed to name a woman as his running mate even before he emerged as the Democratic party’s primary winner from the most diverse field of presidential candidates — diverse in gender, ethnicity, generation, sexual orientation and ideology. He had no shortage of prospects. In Kamala Harris he has chosen a governing partner with roots in social justice. Her selection reflects Biden’s promise to reduce incarceration and reform policing in response to this year’s social justice protest movement.
As an emblem of a Democratic establishment that is largely male, white, and older, Biden may be a transitional agent of change. He has billed himself as the bridge to a more inclusive era of politics that has already arrived in the party’s rank and file. The current Congress marks the fifth time in a row that the House and Senate became more diverse after an election. Women make up nearly a quarter of the membership in each chamber, the highest percentage in history. The speaker of the House is a woman. Roughly 13% of legislators are immigrants or children of immigrants.
The Republican party added a woman, Sarah Palin, to its ticket in 2008. Eight years later, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to lead her party into an election. Though she lost, she shattered one glass ceiling. Six women sought the party’s nomination this year. There is also greater gender, ethnic and income diversity unfolding in congressional and state legislative races.
Demographic milestones are one measure of progress to the extent that they reflect a broadening consent about equality in citizenship. Over the decades, from emancipation to the current social justice movement, representative democracy has gradually come to represent a fuller range of the governed. /Boston, August 11
Christian Science Monitor
Joe Biden vowed to name a woman as his running mate even before he emerged as the Democratic party’s primary winner from the most diverse field of presidential candidates — diverse in gender, ethnicity, generation, sexual orientation and ideology. He had no shortage of prospects. In Kamala Harris he has chosen a governing partner with roots in social justice. Her selection reflects Biden’s promise to reduce incarceration and reform policing in response to this year’s social justice protest movement.
As an emblem of a Democratic establishment that is largely male, white, and older, Biden may be a transitional agent of change. He has billed himself as the bridge to a more inclusive era of politics that has already arrived in the party’s rank and file. The current Congress marks the fifth time in a row that the House and Senate became more diverse after an election. Women make up nearly a quarter of the membership in each chamber, the highest percentage in history. The speaker of the House is a woman. Roughly 13% of legislators are immigrants or children of immigrants.
The Republican party added a woman, Sarah Palin, to its ticket in 2008. Eight years later, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to lead her party into an election. Though she lost, she shattered one glass ceiling. Six women sought the party’s nomination this year. There is also greater gender, ethnic and income diversity unfolding in congressional and state legislative races.
Demographic milestones are one measure of progress to the extent that they reflect a broadening consent about equality in citizenship. Over the decades, from emancipation to the current social justice movement, representative democracy has gradually come to represent a fuller range of the governed. /Boston, August 11
Christian Science Monitor
