Oprah Winfrey is speaking at the Democratic National Convention
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz: A Big Thing That OWN Your Vote Can Do for Women, All Colors, Everywhere
Winfrey went on to support Clinton in 2016 and President Biden in 2020. Notably, she also endorsed Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman in the 2022 midterms over Mehmet Oz — who started The Dr. Oz Show with the help of Winfrey and her production company, Harpo Productions.
“I was thinking the other day, ‘I wish Maya [Angelou] were alive to see it,'” Winfrey told People Magazine in 2020. “But maybe she’s working it on the other side. Because there’s no way to measure what the election of Kamala Harris means for all women, all colors, everywhere.”
“Decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024,” Winfrey said. “And just plain common sense tells you that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can give us decency and respect. They’re the ones to give it to us.”
“And it seems to me that at school and at home, somebody did a beautiful job of showing this young girl how to challenge the people at the top and empower the people at the bottom. They showed her how to look at the world and see not just what is, but what can be. They instilled in her a passion for justice and freedom and the glorious fighting spirit necessary to pursue that passion,” Winfrey said. We are planning on teaching our daughters and sons how the child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father grew up to become the President of the United States.
She said she has observed and experienced both conservative and liberal people who still help one another in times of need. I know that these people make me proud to say that I am an American.
She said that the late Congressman John Lewis and the woman who fought against segregation were icons of the Civil Rights era.
Winfrey highlighted Prevost Williams’ activism as one of the “New Orleans Four,” which pushed for the integration of public schools in New Orleans, La., in 1960. Winfrey said that the way for Harris to go to an integrated public school in the 70s was a result of that activism.
Winfrey has started OWN Your Vote in 2020 to fight against voter suppression and to protect voting access for Black women.
Kamala Harris and I have one pretty big thing in common. We were both raised by single Indian immigrant moms who gave us a better life in America. Now, ahead of the D.N.C., young voters have embraced Harris for her “brat” energy. [MUSIC PLAYING] That had me wondering: Could Kamala’s mom be more of a “brat” than she is? And that question has helped me understand the current momentum behind her campaign and how it could easily fizzle if she doesn’t lay out policies that distinguish her from her predecessor, who was decidedly not “brat” enough. If you don’t have enough time to learn the whole “brat” thing, this is how it started. When Harris took over as the front-runner of the Democratic ticket, the Trump campaign was interested in her laugh, her dance and her biracial identity. “She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went — she became a Black person.” The young people were quick to defend her, using the same phrases as in this summer’s hottest pop album, “Brat” by singer-turned-actress Charli XCX. Kamala is brat according to Charli who weighed in. And shortly after, the campaign officially rebranded to brat green. It is due to her mom that Kamala is a brat. When she moved to the US in the late 60’s, she would get a PhD, fall in love and marry the man of her choice. It may not seem like bratty to Americans, but it would have been downright revolting for someone like Gopalan, who was born into an upper-caste family at a time when women weren’t expected to work and marriages were arranged. Not only that, the man she decided to marry was Black. And most Indian Americans I know today would tell you that they still have family members who have a deep-seated racism, which is a hangover from caste discrimination, which still exists today. After her divorce, which was probably more controversial than a decision to get a love marriage in the first place, Gopalan and Harris raised her two kids amidst a community of Black intellectuals who were active in the fight for the most sweeping civil rights and immigration reforms in American history. And that might have been the most brat thing about her, that she taught her kids to take a bold stand on the right side of history. She told a story about her mom which turned into the campaign slogan, “Kamala is brat”. “My mother would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you fell out of a coconut tree. The context of all you live in is what came before you. [MUSIC PLAYING] Immigrants hold on to their values as they move to the US to build better futures for their kids and this country. “Please raise your right hand.” “Kamala Devi Harris.” Considering the context in which Kamala Harris was raised, the positions she’s defended as vice president, from continuing to arm Israel or using executive orders to stop asylum seekers at the border, seem extremely moderate, considering her mom spent a lifetime defying expectations. As Kamala officially accepts the D.N.C. nomination this week, I’ll be watching to see if she’ll pay more than just lip service to her mom’s brat legacy by actually setting out some policies that will distinguish her from her more moderate predecessor. There is a chance that this wave that she has been riding all summer could turn tired very quickly if she doesn’t.
