The Silence of Kamala Harris
Anna Christina Peterpaul
When Kamala Harris was elected vice president everyone was excited that at last a woman had reached a very high office. Sentiments were this was a grand model for girls and an inspiration for women. We can do it! Women, of course, were most hopeful that she would be our advocate for reproductive rights, putting a halt to violence against women, promoting women who ran for office to represent humanitarian values, and just speaking out for us instead of having the usual parade of white men as vice presidents. Of course, she was voted in to work on behalf of everyone, but we were hoping that she would lend a particular ear to us because men had ruled for so long, and we were tired.
Weeks went by before we saw Harris say anything. The hoopla had died down, and finally, she spoke up for reproductive rights after the right-wing Supreme Court defeated Roe vs. Wade. At last, now she was getting warmed up. Well, she gave a few other speeches that I barely remember, and then a void happened, and she fell silent.
Then, when Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza, she spoke but to defend Israel. Like a parrot, she mimicked Biden in his unwavering defense of Israel. Never mind that Harris has a Jewish husband. That is irrelevant. We are talking about Israel, not Judaism, which has, up to now, killed approximately 23,000 people, 8,000 of whom are children. The US supplies the weapons for this genocide. Here at home and across the world, people shouted ceasefire now, stop this unspeakable carnage. Bowing a little to this pressure, Biden finally and weakly lamented the loss of civilian life, and Harris was right behind him, echoing the same. She became a cue follower of the patriarchy. Maybe Harris always was. She and Biden talked of Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas attacked it. That’s the mantra. So, the response to genocide on the part of Israel was justifiable in their eyes.
In her defense of Israel, Harris speaks for the powers at large, the warmongers, the war profiteers. While children are dying under the rubble in Gaza, the vice president of the US, who provides the weapons to injure and kill these children, does nothing. She is silent because she wants to guarantee her place in the patriarchy that only sees war as an answer in its efforts to maintain Israel as an outpost of the American empire in the Middle East. A feminist, Harris is not. She may occasionally don the veneer of feminism for public display, but she is not working on behalf of women. She has no compassion or understanding of the dreadful suffering of the women of Gaza. Real feminists unite across borders and show solidarity with all women worldwide. We do not side with the warmongers and war profiteers to maintain and enhance our careers and our pockets, and in the process, displace, injure, kill, and starve women and children.
Anna Christina Peterpaul is an ESL teacher who works with children and adults. I volunteered with Amnesty International for several years.