I'm Shireen Marisol Maraji.

I'm Jean Demby and this is Code Switch.

From NPR.

So not too long ago, don't remember who did an episode that focused on the big divides

among Black Democrats based on age.

And in that episode, which we did right after Kamala Harris was named the Democratic nominee for

Vice President, we asked y'all if you wanted us to do an episode getting into her complicated

history as a prosecutor and a lot, a lot of y'all emailed or tweeted us saying, oh yeah,

TF, you should do that episode.

So we heard you in this is that episode.

Not that long ago, Kamala Harris's record as the first Black district attorney of San Francisco

and the first Black Attorney General of California would have been very large feathers in her cap,

but over the last few years, voters in the Democratic Party have moved to the left on issues of race

and criminal justice.

That has made things kind of complicated for Kamala Harris who at different points of her career

has proudly called herself California's top cop and other times has called herself a progressive

prosecutor as recently as the Vice Presidential debate last week, you know, the one with the fly.

Uh, she described herself as the only one on this state was personally prosecuted.

Everything from child sexual assault to homicide.

When she was first becoming a national figure, she was being called the next

Barack Obama by some people and like Obama, her biography and heritage allowed people to project

all kinds of ideas onto her and to see what they wanted to see.

...