Harris accepts VP nomination

‘We’ve gotta do the work’: Harris accepts VP nomination, calls for fight against ‘structural racism’

The historic address from Joe Biden’s running mate focused heavily on matters of race and justice.

By QUINT FORGEY

As Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nomination on Wednesday night — becoming the first Black woman and first Asian American to join a major party presidential ticket — she argued that “structural racism” had compounded the coronavirus’s consequences for communities of color across America.

“This virus has no eyes, and yet it knows exactly how we see each other — and how we treat each other,” the California senator said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention. “And let’s be clear — there is no vaccine for racism. We’ve gotta do the work.”

The highly anticipated remarks from Joe Biden’s running mate also focused heavily on the former prosecutor’s biography, reintroducing the daughter of immigrants to a national audience and casting her as a crusader for justice with a deep law enforcement background.

But much of Harris’ historic address focused on matters of race, and she began by comparing the plights of prominent Black, female civil rights leaders to the story of her own mother, Shyamala, who emigrated to the United States from India and pursued a career as a cancer researcher.

It was Shyamala who taught Harris and her sister, Maya, “to believe public service is a noble cause and the fight for justice is a shared responsibility,” Harris said — values that shaped the candidate’s ascent from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general to U.S. senator.

“I keep thinking about that 25-year-old Indian woman — all of five feet tall — who gave birth to me at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California,” Harris said. “On that day, she probably could have never imagined that I would be standing before you now speaking these words: I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States of America.”

Beyond her family biography, Harris’ speech also sought to highlight her courtroom experience and tenure atop the nation’s second-largest justice department. She touted her legal battles against “transnational criminal organizations” and her advocacy on behalf of sexual assault survivors, noting that “I know a predator when I see one.”

Harris spoke glowingly of Biden’s late son Beau, a fellow state attorney general from Delaware, and praised the former vice president’s involvement in legislation that included the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Violence Against Women Act and the Recovery Act. While Trump “turns our tragedies into political weapons,” she said, “Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose.”

That denunciation of the incumbent Republican was one of several criticisms from Harris that demonstrated a willingness to take on a role often assigned to presidential running mates: attack dog. The country is “at an inflection point,” she contended, and Trump’s “failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods.”

“The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone,” Harris said. “It’s a lot. And here’s the thing: We can do better and deserve so much more.”

In the closing moments of her speech, the newly minted vice presidential candidate nodded not only to the unprecedented nature of her nomination, but also to the state of the union ahead of an election that both Republicans and Democrats have described as the most important in a generation.

“Years from now, this moment will have passed,” she said. “And our children and our grandchildren will look in our eyes and ask us: Where were you when the stakes were so high? They will ask us, ‘What was it like?’ And we will tell them. We will tell them not just how we felt. We will tell them what we did.”