Harris’ track record worth reviewing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/07/2024 (509 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On this scorcher of a Saturday in July, we can chronicle that the hottest political story of this week was U.S. President Joe Biden removing himself from the Democratic Presidential ticket and endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris.

I will offer analysis of Kamala Harris’ politics on a different day.

My focus now is on her roots. If elected president, she will be the very first with Asian heritage. Her mom, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in India in 1938. She met her future husband, Jamaican-born Donald Harris, in the United States. Both were academics. He was an economics professor. She was a cancer researcher.

Harris’ parents had two children, Kamala and her younger sister Maya. Kamala was only five when her parents divorced. She said “it was really my mother who took charge of our upbringing. She was the one most responsible for shaping us into the women we would become.”

Her mom encouraged her to pursue law. She took her mother’s advice seriously and she wasn’t wrong.

Kamala Harris became a popular figure in San Francisco as a tough prosecutor. She was elected district attorney in that city. She went on to win three statewide races, two for attorney general of California and then as a U.S. senator. She was chosen by Joe Biden to be his VP running mate four years ago.

Recently in the Wall Street Journal, a scholar born in India, Tunku Varadarajan, wrote about the success of his ethnic group in the U.S.: “Indian-Americans have the highest median household income in the U.S. by ethnic group. One in every 20 doctors here is Indian, as is one in every ten students entering medical school.”

It’s not breaking news to anyone that people of Indian descent have a higher than average level of economic and professional achievement in many countries outside of India, including the one we live in. You don’t have to be a member of the Indo Canadian community in Manitoba to observe the self evident.

But none of this is about racial supremacy. It’s about strong values and good habits. It’s not a nature argument. It’s very much about nurture. Many of us who have experienced similar nurturing have seen excellent results.

I was not born in India. My birthplace is Hungary. But my father’s idea of nurturing was not terribly different from what Kamala Harris learned from her mother.

Mike Adler’s house rules never changed. And I’m confident Kamala Harris’ mom would have approved. These are the top three rules. Always value education. Always pursue a profession, vocation or business enterprise where you can excel. And most important, always outwork everyone else.

Long before I had my first class at university, it was crystal clear that my father was 100 per cent right.

By the time I was in my second year, after having discovered the radio station on campus, Radio McGill, I knew that I would start earning a shot at economic independence very soon. I just needed to find the opportunity to turn on a professional radio microphone.

Fortunately I found one in Western Canada. I was 19 years old and hosting an evening show in Calgary, when my first professional goal was realized.

I wasn’t making big bucks. But it was enough for food, shelter and fuel.

Only one week after my 20th birthday I was turning a professional mic on in Montreal, on the road to half a century of success at radio and TV stations in two countries, hosting national shows in both Canada and the United States.

If my father had his way, I would have chosen the Kamala Harris path — law. He wanted his son to become a tough-as-nails prosecutor.

In light of the devastation that came to his family in the Holocaust, he thought the most appropriate place for his high achieving offspring was the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, where I could prosecute war criminals.

Throughout most of my professional life, I believed my nurturing father was deeply disappointed with my choices. But after he passed of Alzheimer’s, I learned from his Filipino Canadian caregivers that Mike Adler was indeed proud of the son he nurtured.

This the final weekend in July. We’re on the doorstep of August, only eight days away from the finest multicultural festival in Canada — Folklorama. Many ethnic cultures get a chance to share the best of who they are, with a powerful emphasis on the best of their cuisine. Bon appetit.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com