Who Is Kamala Harris?
Who Is?
iHeartRadio + NowThis
4.1 • 803 Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2020
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After a lifetime of firsts--from San Francisco District Attorney to California Attorney General to the Senate--Kamala Harris could become the first woman to serve as Vice President. Born in Oakland, California, and raised in Berkeley, Harris’s groundbreaking career in law enforcement has opened up space for women like Chicago’s Kimberly M. Foxx and Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby. But it has also on occasion put her at odds with the communities she is first to represent in office, and at times obscured her record on consumer protection, the environment, privacy, LGBTQ+ rights, and more. Nevertheless, Harris represents, in many ways, the future of the Democratic Party, and in just a few weeks, could be on her way to the White House.
- Senator Barbara Boxer, who represented California in the Senate for nearly 25 years
- Tanya Christian, a New York City-based journalist covering news and politics
- Marisa Lagos, political correspondent at KQED in San Francisco. Lagos is co-host of the podcast Political Breakdown
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In this campaign, we've also heard, and I'm going to now direct this at Vice President Biden, |
| 0:06.2 | I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. |
| 0:16.2 | But I also believe, and it's personal, and it was actually very, it was hurtful to hear you talk |
| 0:23.6 | about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career |
| 0:31.1 | on the segregation of race in this country. |
| 0:35.3 | And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. |
| 0:41.7 | And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate |
| 0:48.1 | her public schools. And she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me. |
| 0:55.0 | That was Senator Kamala Harris during the Democratic presidential primaries, |
| 1:00.5 | addressing her then-opponent and now running mate, Vice President Joe Biden. |
| 1:06.3 | Harris is talking about busing, a type of desegregation in which black and brown children are |
| 1:11.9 | bused to primarily white schools on the other side of town. |
| 1:16.1 | Harris was bused as a child. |
| 1:18.8 | But Senator Harris herself has been the subject of significant criticism for her own record. |
| 1:24.6 | For some, she isn't tough enough. |
| 1:27.0 | For others, she's a former prosecutor |
| 1:29.3 | in a world where we hear calls to defund the police. |
| 1:33.3 | I reject a notion that says that if you try and fix a system from the inside, then you |
| 1:38.3 | are somehow suspect. And I'm proud of the work I did. There is an important role for us to play those of us who have understood and experienced the bias and the unfairness for us to be on the inside where the decisions are being made. |
| 1:54.3 | Today, in 2020, she's very, very close to reaching the place where decisions are made. |
| 2:00.6 | From Thousand Oaks Elementary School to Howard University to San Francisco. very, very close to reaching the place where decisions are made. |
| 2:07.0 | From Thousand Oaks Elementary School to Howard University to San Francisco District Attorney to the Senate. |
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