August 2019 | RollingStone.com | 97
[Cont. from 73] When I ask Harris about the new
rhetoric, she says, “It’s about: We’re not going to go
back to a state of mind, for example, that says that
certain things can’t be done or certain people can’t
do it.”
One of the reasons Harris’ debate performance
resonated is it was something that we hadn’t ever
seen before. No other black presidential candidate,
not even Obama, experienced busing the way that
Harris did. We hadn’t seen someone who had been
subjected as a child to the federal remedies for sys-
temic racism confronting a white legislator who im-
plemented — or in Biden’s case, opposed — those
remedies. During the debates, as Biden was making
his cases against busing in the 1970s, how could he
have ever imagined that a little girl who got bused to
Berkeley’s Thousand Oaks Elementary would grow
up to challenge him for the office that he has always
wanted?
Simon, who has the practical experience of work-
ing with Harris, believes she can be a transformation-
al figure as president, even though Simon agrees it’s
a major ask to get black folks to believe that in the
Trump era. “You don’t need somebody to give you
permission to be your brilliant self,” Simon says, not-
ing that it was Harris who pushed her to go to college.
“And I feel that’s why she decided to run for presi-
dent. Nobody is going to give permission for a black
woman who wants to make incremental change in
this country.”
H
ARRIS WAS RAISED by strong women, and
pragmatism ruled the day. Her “second
mother,” as Harris still calls the late Regina
Shelton, came to Berkeley from Louisiana. Shelton
was running a child-care business in the early 1970s.
Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher, and her
two little girls, Kamala and Maya Harris, lived just
two doors down from the Sheltons, in the apartment
above the child-care center. (Harris’ father, Donald,
emigrated from Jamaica to do his graduate studies in
economics at Cal. The couple divorced when Kamala
was seven years old, and Gopalan was granted cus-
tody of the girls. Kamala and Donald are not close.)
Until Kamala was 12, when Gopalan moved the girls
to Montreal after accepting research and teaching po-
sitions there, the two mothers were fast friends and
bonded over their local activism.
“They got that political ire-and-fire from following
their mother to campaigns on campus,” says Sharon
McGaffie, Shelton’s daughter, of Kamala and Maya,
who went on to become a civil-rights attorney in her
own right. (Maya’s daughter, Meena, is now an at-
torney, activist, and entrepreneur, who credits her
grandmother for showing her, her mother, and her
aunt Kamala how to be diligent. “I don’t know any-
thing else but to work my ass off, to know that I have
an obligation and a duty to do good in the world,”
Meena says.)
That appears to be a value Harris picked up as
well. “People over the years have learned to trust
that what I say will be well thought out, well rea-
soned, accurate — and that it will be practical,” the
senator says. “And this is where sometimes people
on my communications team get upset with me, be-
cause I’m like, ‘I’m not going to just say that because
somebody came up with a talking point for me. What
does that mean? Has anyone done the research on
this? What are the unintended consequences?’ Be-
KAMALA HARRIScause when I say something, I know that there are
people who are trusting me.”
That “heavy burden,” as Harris puts it, is one she
knows from experience. “Look, you have to under-
stand that when I hold a microphone in front of me, I
am acutely aware of the power that I have,” she says,
locking eyes, her demeanor serious. “From the day I
became a prosecutor in my early twenties, I learned
that with the swipe of my pen, if I charge someone
with a misdemeanor, they could be arrested. They
could sit in jail for 48 hours. They’d be embarrassed
in their community, in their family. They might lose
their job. All because I charged them with a crime.
“So I do believe that people want to know that
when you have that kind of power, you are respectful
of it and you are appreciative of the fact it will have
an impact on real people.”
Harris speaks about these responsibilities in a slow
and solemn cadence. “My perspective was, ‘Let’s go
on the inside, where we have the ability to be at the
table, where the decisions are being made.’ It’s one
of the reasons I ran for district attorney, because I
know I’m not so good at asking for permission.” Har-
ris laughs to herself. But she still isn’t kidding. “I’m
just not. I’m not.”T
HE VERY EXISTENCE of Kamala Harris as a can-
didate isn’t an incremental change; one can
only hope that her policies wouldn’t be, ei-
ther. Thus far, Harris has stayed inside the bounds
of Washington politics while still pushing innovative
ideas that have a chance of realization. “She’s not
a progressive,” says Vinson, the Furman professor.
“She is very squarely in the mainstream of the Dem-
ocratic Party. And that’s something that will appeal
to South Carolina voters because there are a lot who
don’t want the progressive wing to prevail.”
At the Essence Festival in New Orleans, Harris
teased a forthcoming slate of policies focusing on
black uplift while introducing a $100 billion plan to
help communities affected by the racist practice of
redlining that shut out potential black homeown-
ers from building equity in their own communities.
Harris also joined forces in July with first-year Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a bill that would change
eviction and screening policies to help people with
criminal records apply for housing assistance. While
some observers claim Harris is latching on to AOC
for progressive cred, this bill actually hearkens back
to her own work with the Back on Track program in
San Francisco.
Harris also promises to continue fighting for the
LIFT the Middle Class Act, the basic-income-style bill
she proposed last fall that offers, with income restric-
tions, $250 to singles and $500 to married couples
monthly. In May, as Republican states were trying to
outdo one another for the cruelest piece of anti-abor-
tion legislation, Harris presented one of the smartestpolicy proposals yet offered by a Democratic candi-
date: modeling a reproductive-rights bill on the Vot-
ing Rights Act. Her idea would mandate that states
with a history of restrictive anti-abortion laws get fed-
eral permission before enacting new ones.
“Go back to Bobby Kennedy, when he understood
the power of law enforcement through the Depart-
ment of Justice to enforce civil rights. Remember
when he sent those U.S. marshals down?” Harris
says, referencing James Meredith’s integration of the
University of Mississippi. “It’s about the checks and
balances, and knowing the power within these insti-
tutions to create that. We don’t only have to be on
the outside. I guess the point is, and maybe this is a
theme of how I have approached issues and my ca-
reer — I prefer to be on the offensive.”
It’s an attitude that Harris has had since her earli-
est days of retail politics, when she ran for San Fran-
cisco DA in 2003. “I would campaign with my ironing
board,” she says. “I would grab it out of my house —
and a roll of duct tape, my posters, my literature, and
my handouts. And I would put them all in my car and
drive to a grocery store.”
Then Harris would get out, open up shop in front
of the store, and begin selling her candidacy to
whomever passed by. “The ironing board makes a
great standing desk,” she says. “I’d tape my post-
ers on one side, flap them over. And I would require
people to talk to me as they walked in and out of the
grocery store.” Require? “Oh, some would not. But
I was not going to be denied — without really being
too forceful. That’s how I campaigned.” We drive past
bus stops in San Francisco’s Chinatown, street cor-
ners that Harris recognizes readily. “I would cam-
paign at these bus stops starting at six in the morn-
ing until 8:00 at night,” she says.
At one point, I tell Harris that she is asking for a lot
of trust when she asks black people and other Amer-
icans who have been marginalized to believe she can
change the system. “You’re totally right,” she says,
noting that she tries to address this in her stump
speeches. “One of the most important ingredients in
trust is truth, but speaking truth can often make peo-
ple quite uncomfortable, right? Often, at least a few
of those truths that I speak, people are not prepared
to hear, but they do not deny it. Nobody wants a lead-
er who’s walking around selling dope.”
Walking in San Francisco’s Pride parade down
Market Street alongside the Harris car, a red convert-
ible Ford Mustang only outshined by the senator’s
rainbow-bejeweled denim jacket, I suddenly find my-
self walking next to her husband.
The Brooklyn native is fairly experienced at cam-
paigning by now, having been in every Pride pa-
rade with Harris since he married her in 2014, after
a year’s courtship that began with a blind date. “I’ve
had a good, unique view over the past several years
to see her in action,” Emhoff says. “And I’m im-
pressed to see how she’s evolved and how really good
she’s gotten at communicating — the substance, but
also the personal. And now you’re seeing the conver-
gence of who she is: who I fell in love with, and who
I get to see every day.”
Like her hero, Shirley Chisholm, Harris is staging a
presidential run as a woman unafraid to be herself.
She is an educated black woman who carries an un-
flinching belief in law and order and the American
project, however flawed. Fortunately for her, in this
race, you don’t get much more anti-Trump than that.
She now has the momentum. It is time for her to
make her case, fascinating and complicated though
it may be.“My perspective was,
‘Let’s go on the inside,
where we have the
ability to be at the table.’
This is a theme of how Ihave approached issues
and my career — I prefer
to be on the offensive.”