Kamala Harris: a brief Montrealer
Now that Kamala Harris is to be the first woman, and first woman of colour, to be Vice-President of the USA, Montreal is staking its claim on her and Westmount High may never quite get over it. CTV’s headline “Kamala Harris becomes first Westmount High alum ever elected to American vice-presidency” suggests there are others lining up for the job.
Let’s not forget Dan Bilefsky’s piece in the New York Times, discussed here, where it mostly came out that Harris wasn’t exactly enchanted by her time in the city.
The Gazette, in its wisdom, headlines this piece “Americans living in Montreal celebrate Biden’s win over Trump” and I was like, wow, at the photo – before realizing it was from New York. I don’t mean to constantly critique the paper, I know that they’re running on fumes like a lot of media, but can they not be a little more coherent? I want a better local anglo paper. (Bring back the Montreal Star!)
Incidentally, I could hear fireworks Saturday night in Villeray, quite a few minutes of them. I don’t know whether these were joyous Americans, but it seems possible.
Raymond Lutz 11:38 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
There’s nothing for progressives to rejoyce about Biden and Harris election. Yes, fighting a rightwing opponent is better than a fascist one. Which one would you chose? Biden or Franco, Pinochet, Suharto? The choice is clear. Yes, by his violence incitations, call outs to ProudBoys, etc… Trump IS a fascist; go read Gov. Gretchen Whitmer testimony in The Atlantic on the failed Michigan coup.
So we can be relieved but the fight for MED4A, student debt abolition, living wages, end of wars, racial and gender equity, fossil fuels phasing out continues.
And Harris is an horrible person. I won’t paste the URLS but here’s her pedigree (those are exact journal artcile titles):
“As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris’s Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims of Catholic Church Child Abuse”.
“Kamala Harris laughed about jailing parents over truancy.”
“How Kamala Harris Fought to Keep Nonviolent Prisoners Locked Up”
And don’t get me started on Biden-I-wont-ban-fracking… I’ll simply suggest this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XBSB1VLIbI and google “Part 4 – Shokin Strikes Back” for an interviwe of the former General Prosecutor of Ukraine, who got fired under Biden pressure.
Chris 12:41 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
>And Harris is an horrible person.
But she’s a womxn of colour! That makes her automatically good! /s Unfortunately, some people can’t see past colour of skin to real content of character. 🙁
Kevin 12:42 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
The US is not a progressive country.
If Biden had mentioned anything on Raymond’s list he would have lost.
JaneyB 13:18 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
@Kevin – Precisely. Their ‘natural governing party’ is basically Reagan’s Republicans. Annoying to us but that’s what resonates with the vast majority of Americans. Some states and some cities will be more progressive but there is no secret Sweden to be liberated. A centrist in power is as good as it’s gonna get.
This election is a pretty solid improvement for America. I think we’ll see some real action on climate and better race relations. The background star of the election is Georgia’s Stacey Abrams and her expansion of voter registration. If their Senate run-off races in January go Democrat, wow!
jeather 14:13 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
Rejoicing that there are centrists instead of fascists and that progressives (US versions of it anyways) got elected to congress, that people who campaigned on Medicare for All did better than people who didn’t — I grant that this is all incremental, and the results aren’t the absolute disaster for Trump one would have hoped for, but lots of progressives are really happy. Joy doesn’t mean you give up the fight.
Michael Black 14:14 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
People will never be satisfied.
Shirley Chisolm didn’t win. Angela Davis didn’t win. Geraldine Ferraro didn’t win. Winona LaDuke didn’t win. Hillary Clinton didn’t win. There were others, but they didn’t win.
Long after other countries had women leaders, 244 years after US independence, and now for the first time a women is vice president (still no women president). And in 244 years, only the second time that there’s been a Black president or vice president.
It’s easy to dismiss from a white perspective, it’s a giant leap for black people, and likely for women.
Wilton Guerrero 14:36 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
The argument that Americans are fundamentally conservative is belied by the success of many progressive ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana and raising the minimum wage, not to mention the strong majorities that favour Medicare for all.
What is unpopular is the Democratic Party and that perhaps is not the sign of stupidity many take it to be, after all West Virginia, Ohio, Detroit, and whole swaths of the Rust Belt were Democrat strongholds for decades, what did it ultimately get them but ruin. Some decided to go Republican, many more just stay home. The direction of the country is out of their hands anyway.
PatrickC 16:24 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
I don’t how many others of us here remember the Montreal Star, but I second your motion, Kate, or at least your emotion, as Smokey Robinson would say. In its last decade, the Star did its best to make up for the sins of its past, though I may be looking through the glasses of nostalgia. The online version of the Gazette is horrible, with its autoplay videos and other annoyances, as well as the thinness of its content. But what kind of alternative would be viable?
Raymond Lutz 16:36 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
“It’s easy to dismiss from a white perspective, it’s a giant leap for black people, and likely for women.”
Hmmm… like the giant step Obama was? Let’s ear what two blacks persons have to say about those giant steps, since my whiteness seems to disqualify me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3-FFcCUMGk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9rNFI–sWk
Nathaniel 17:23 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
On the question of Kamala Harris’s work as a district attorney, people might want to read this nuanced and powerful piece by Reginald Dwayne Betts, who served six years in prison as a teenager for committing a carjacking, then became an acclaimed poet and Yale Law graduate: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/magazine/kamala-harris-crime-prison.html
Hamza 17:23 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
@raymond – dude , can you like stop trying to tell people of colour how they should feel about this ?
now is not the time for white guys to be throwing shade on a historical moment for women and people of colour. plenty of time in the future for that when the presidents-elect make mistakes.
i don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing here , except coming across like a major asshole or “i’m going to spout racist talking points espoused by actual racists, but gonna draw a line around myself as a good progressive white guy”
The problem with this is white guys always always always feel entitled to their white perspective and think that people of colour give even an iota of a crap what you think ,when we don’t .
take your random negativity and cope
Raymond Lutz 19:04 on 2020-11-08 Permalink
No random negativity here, I much rejoiced when Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were elected, those were much more important non-white, non-men progressive gains than Harris… And I can’t wait for Nina Turner in 2014 running for president! She’ll kick ass! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Emi7wOlb9k
Hands Up 21:16 on 2020-11-09 Permalink
Raymond Lutz’s random negativity seems to indicate that he has even the slightest amount of information about political histories of the candidates. That’s a no-no in our idiot culture.
Also, this:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/white-professor-lying-about-black-identity
Raymond Lutz 08:12 on 2020-12-10 Permalink
Ostie, OUiiii! Ninaaa! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PL4uKVtlgY But I fear for her: If they can’t rig the political process (as with Sanders) the plutocrats, (GOP and corporate Dems) will simply eliminate her like they did with Martin Luther King when he started to threaten the political hegemony of capitalism with the Poor People’s March on Washington (same fate as Fred Hampton, same reasons, 20 months later).