The Indian media was more excited than Americans after Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate. Social media users were quick to spot her Indian descendants and dig deep into it.
On Twitter and Facebook, a flurry of users chronicled every minute link including her grandparents’ home in the Besant Nagar neighborhood, from where her mother Shyamala Gopalan set off as a teenager to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of California Berkeley.
Well, her achievements are undoubtedly commendable, but critics in the US have another side to tell as well. Here are some positive and negative key takeaways of her political career:
- Harris is both the first Black woman on a major party ticket in the United States and the first person of Indian descent.
- Her stance on capital punishment, in particular, has drawn scrutiny. She perceives the death penalty law as unconstitutional. However, she has been criticized for defending the death penalty as attorney general.
- Harris argues that she’s fought to reverse incarceration, scale back the war on drugs, and address racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
- Harris has defended the 3 strikes law, in which Black people are incarcerated at a rate 12 times higher than whites.
- She’s an alumnus of Howard University, a historically Black college. However, several critics believe that she doesn’t really support the community but is just banking upon their votes owing to her ethnicity.
- Being biracial, she has always stood up in favor of black people. She said, “Racial justice is on the ballot in 2020.” She has supported the BLM movement but had opposed a bill that would have required her office to investigate police shootings.
- Her priority in policies is criminal justice reforms and racial legislation.
- She has faced criticism from progressive activists over her record as a prosecutor including her pledge for higher cash bails for certain crimes.
- Her healthcare plan sought to provide Medicare for all Americans, but it kept a significant role for health insurance companies by allowing people to choose private plans modeled on Medicare Advantage.
- She is well known for her good relationship with Wall Street and Silicon Valley and supports Biden’s policy for an increase in corporate taxes.
- Harris has proposed legislation that would establish an independent Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability and rate environmental laws and rules based on their impact on low-income communities.
- She pushed for programs that helped people find jobs instead of putting them in prison, but also fought to keep people in prison even after they were proved innocent.
- As a Democratic presidential candidate, Harris released plans outlining her vision for criminal justice reform and how to “stand up for Black America.”
- Harris has voted against US military sales to Saudi Arabia and opposes the Gulf country’s war on Iran-backed forces in Yemen.
- On Syria, Harris criticized Trump for allowing Turkey to attack US-backed Kurdish forces in northeast Syria last year.
- She has defended prison labor wherein the critics term it as ‘prison slavery.’
- Obama has touted for her and had called her “brilliant,” “dedicated” and “tough” in 2013.
