I vividly remember the first time Barack Obama was elected. I was euphoric for at least a week, as if India had resoundingly beat Pakistan in the World Cup, with MS Dhoni spearheading the victory.
It was a time of hope for even non-Americans such as myself.
Personally, President Barack Obama and his family epitomised everything that I had to come to believe was wholesome about America. And they did this by being themselves: by being African American.
During Obama’s reign, it was fashionable to be American. I would meet Americans in London over the summer, and I would hang on their every word. I was mesmerised and in awe of their lives. I’d often wonder to myself would my life be infinitely better had my parents immigrated to the USA and not the UK.
Would I also have had the chance of public service that was meaningful and legacy building as Obama?
However, now I feel as if I have woken up from a dream and walked into the nightmare that is Dante’s inferno. The circulating air around me burns with the hot dust of Trump’s lies, and the debris of his ineptitude continuously and relentlessly attacks the very fabric of my being.
It hurts to see the Republican party burn America: its as if they have crucified democracy at the altar of their ego.
The rotting core
I am overwhelmed with the rot that has come to represent American culture. I am not sure where to begin, but I’ll point to things that speak to me personally:
- The Mueller pantomime that may cost Democrats votes: how fundamental could an investigatory error be? Of course, Ukraine could not be the exception. Why did everyone assume this was one-off??
- The Nepotism of the far right: What are the qualifications of Trump’s daughter other than being a poor shadow of Sonam Kapoor?
- The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh as SC justice reinforced the lack of progress that women’s rights had made over the past two decades.
- Caging children. Enough said.
- 170,000 deaths and counting.
The only rays of hope appeared to have been the trials of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein.
Was America always decayed at its core? I don’t know.
Kamala Harris
A NY times reader writes that Kamala Harris made a “career trampling on the rights of the brown, the poor, and the powerless in order to gain a reputation of “tough.” Unlike H Clinton or Obama she didn’t uplift those at the bottom of the pyramid (see footnote).
I cannot get excited by the prospect of KH as VP, as in addition she lacks any ideological foundation, and she was the only candidate in the presidential race who stood-out for he eviscerating and divisive comments of her colleagues. Winning at all costs Kamala?
Also, there is still the problem that for me, she is just a box of firsts. I say that with such callous disregard that you may think I am an elitist liberal snob. I am, but I am also Indian and when 200 million of your fellow compatriots live on less than US$ 1.90 you forgo the right to elitism.
The American dream
By most metrics, the American dream is dead.
That is, contrary to what more than three-quarters of Americans still believe, sheer hard work is NO LONGER the most significant contributor to success.
The circumstances of your birth determine how real the American dream is for you.
In 2017, Raj Chetty and many economists published a mobility report based on the date of 30 million college students (1999-2013).
As the Economist writes,
The data show that attending an elite college is a good way of securing an upper-middle class lifestyle—graduates of Ivy League-calibre universities have roughly the same chance of breaking into the top 20% of the income distribution, regardless of family background.
However, children in the lowest income group can’t rise to the 1% income group irrespective of their college degree.
Furthermore, “children whose parents are in the top 1% of the income distribution are 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than those in the lowest income tier.” (Source: Chetty et al)
Closing
In summary, the American dream of being the next Warren Buffet or Jeff Bezos is only real if you are born in the right income household and or have the right parents.
Kamala Harris had the right upbringing and privilege to achieve her dreams.
For there to be more women of colour match her achievement, they must as always, overcome higher odds and hardship, including poverty, the stigma of being female and wanting to study and having an ambition. Often, they have to fight patriarchal constraints and once they’ve done that, battle systemic racism.
There is nothing about the appointment of KH as VP that helps the lives of disenfranchised, African American women or women of colour. Sorry.
I wish this were not the case, but four years of Trump have illustrated that there is plenty of room for more African American deaths but no future for them in the USA, especially if they are women.
If my genuine despair does not force you to take an interest in the outcome of American politics, then I am afraid you are on your own.
Source
Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility by Chetty et al. Available at this link http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/papers/coll_mrc_paper.pdf
New York Times, “Did We Ever Know the Real Kamala Harris?”
Source: New York Times, Did we Ever Know the Real Kamala Harris?Dave writes: ” What made me not-at-all excited about Harris was an op-ed published on these very pages (the New York Times) that explained her record as a prosecutor. And the more I looked at it, it seemed as though the pattern was that AG Harris, like many AGs before her, had spent her career trampling on the rights of the brown, the poor, and the powerless in order to gain a reputation of “tough”.
For instance, Harris had no problem ruining thousands of lives over small amounts of cannabis, even though she had smoked herself.
And Harris went on record as wanting to keep people in prison not because they were a threat to society but so they could be forced to work as cheap firefighters. And meanwhile, she treated Steve Mnuchin with kid gloves because he donated $2000 to her Senate campaign – talk about pliable. This record was later highlighted at a debate by Tulsi Gabbard of all people.
Ambition is fine. Ambition that depends on stomping on others by the thousands is not. If you want to lead, lift up those at the bottom by organizing them (like Obama), arguing cases for them (like H Clinton), designing and pushing laws that will help them (like Warren), or standing with them at protests (like Bernie).