Harris’ story is our story, and our democracy

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the Democratic National Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

If you’ve ever been underestimated, ignored, or generally made to feel invisible by others who simply assumed their superiority over you, the Democratic nominee for president just made a speech for all of us.

Kamala Harris gave that speech on Thursday night, and if there was ever any doubt she will be ready to be president of the United States on Day One, it vanished before our eyes on the final day of the Democratic National Convention.

Her speech sent this message to the world: Kamala Harris is ready to lead America out of its post-Trump funk. Joyfully, but seriously too. Her opponent knows how she can laugh. But unlike her opponent, whom Harris called an “unserious man,” Harris is a serious woman, a prosecutor, not a convicted felon.

And she’s writing a new chapter of the great American story. It’s one encouraged by her immigrant parents from far away islands. Her father from Jamaica told her as a young child at play to “Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.” And her mother from India told her to stay close.

But while her dad taught her to be fearless, Harris said it was her mom who later told her something she’ll never forget– to never do anything “half-assed.”

Good advice for the next 74 or so days until November 5, when Harris engages in the run of her life, the fight for America’s democracy.

History making

Before Harris’ big moment on the last day of the DNC, a video was played to introduce her to the standing room only crowd. One clip showed her at an APAICS (Asian Pacific American Institute of Congressional Studies) event, where she revealed a feisty but vulgar side she rarely shows.

“People will open the door for you and leave it open,” the video shows Harris speaking to an audience. “Sometimes they won’t, and then you need to kick that f—ing door down.”

You don’t mess with Kamala Harris.

When the video ended, Harris appeared on the convention stage, her biggest stage ever with millions watching. She didn’t have to kick down any doors. She walked deliberately, with confidence, to cheers and adulation, ready to show the world the first woman, the first ever daughter of immigrants of Black and Asian descent, born in the flatlands of Oakland, a member of the middle class, was more than ready to make history on multiple fronts and take America into the future.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the Democratic National Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It was a brilliant speech in so many ways, filled with soaring rhetoric that let people know exactly how Harris feels about who she is as a biracial woman; her love for America and its people; and her passion for service to help us all reach our dreams.

“I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world,” Harris said. “That here in this country, anything is possible, that nothing is out of reach in an America where we care for one another, look out for one another, and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed.”

It was a unifying speech in a time when we are too easily divided. It’s as if she was reinforcing that line in the Pledge of Allegiance too often taken for granted that speaks of “one nation, indivisible.”

Harris, as a multiracial person in a diverse new America, also showed us how maybe we all should talk about race and ethnicity in 2024, a time in society where minorities will soon be the majority. It has become such a sore point these days that diversity, equity and inclusion are too often seen as fighting words.

So how should we talk about race?

You don’t billboard it. You don’t blast it out. If it’s derived from Obama’s approach, a bit. But it’s all Harris, and it’s how you navigate the treacherous race waters.

You let the obvious stand, and you show people who and what you are by your actions. Let them make all the assumptions they want. And when you confide in them your origin story, they will realize the truth–how our similarities are greater than our differences.

For Harris, her vehicle was the story of her mother, the late Shyamala Gopalan Harris.

“My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with an unshakeable dream to be the scientist to cure breast cancer,” Harris said. “When she finished school, she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage but as fate would have it, she met my father, Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and got married, and that act of self-determination made my sister Maya and me.”

Harris said they moved around from city to city, wherever her parents’ jobs took them. But she said, “the harmony between my parents did not last.” It left her a child of divorce raised by a single mom, and others in her neighborhood. “None of them family by blood, and all of them family by love,” Harris said.

That extended family instilled the “values of community, faith, and the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated, with kindness, respect, and compassion.”

But she would often see how her mother was not treated well by others.

“My mother was a brilliant, five-foot-tall brown woman with an accent,” Harris said. “But my mother never lost her cool. She was tough, courageous, a trailblazer in the fight for women’s health.”

By her actions, she provided the lesson.

“She taught us to never complain about injustice, but do something about it,” she said. “That was my mother.”

The acceptance

Her mom’s story is the heart and soul of Harris. And it informed the real function of the night’s speech, her formal acceptance of her important new role: “And so on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender, or the language a grandmother speaks, on behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with, people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another, on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination.”

A simple “yes,” would not have been good enough.

The policy parts

Of course, her 37-minute speech addressed all the key talking points of her campaign, such as destroying Trump’s Project 2025, and saying she would sign the bipartisan border deal that Trump deliberately told his congressional allies to kill.

But it all seemed small next to the personal story that revealed the real Harris.

After hearing her story, you can’t take any claim seriously that calls her a leftist or a communist. Harris is more moderate pragmatist than anything else. Surely, she’s more a unifier, a problem solver, not a divider/chaos creator.

And if there was any fear about her adequacy on the world stage, Harris dispelled that easily.

“I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” Harris said. “And with respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock to get a hostage deal and ceasefire deal done.”

On Israel, she said she will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself. But she acknowledged that the “scale of suffering is heartbreaking,” and is working with President Biden to see that “the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

As for the bad actors of the world, Harris was clear.

“I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un, who are rooting for Trump, because you know they know. They know he is easy to manipulate with flattering favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself. And as President, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs.”

And where is that exactly? Again, her mother was at the heart of how she saw policy.

Her story, America’s story 

“My mother had another lesson she used to teach,” Harris said. “Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. America, let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness, and endless possibilities.”

In other words, let’s tell our story loud and clear.

“We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world,” she said. “And on behalf of our children and our grandchildren, and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of the moment.”

The speech ended with a flash of light, that gets us on a roll, urging us all to show “our optimism and faith to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth, the privilege and pride of being an American.”

Only a daughter of immigrants would so humbly see being an American as privilege.

“So let’s get out there,” Harris said. “Let’s fight for it. Let’s get out there. Let’s vote for it, and together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”

American democracy is not an experiment after all; it is the extraordinary story of human history.

In her formal acceptance speech, Harris was telling us the next chapter, is in our hands.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He writes a column for the Inquirer.net’s US channel. See his micro-talkshow on YouTube.com/@emilamok1; Contact him at www.amok.com