Politics and Current
Trump’s Questioning of Harris’ Race Shows Ignorance About Code-Switching
Kamala Harris has the range. She can grill Supreme Court candidates or meet with foreign dignitaries, then move on to hosting a Diwali celebration or a rapturous dance with an HBCU-style marching band.
Harris, the primary Black and Asian American woman to function vp, has developed a knack as an individual of color that enables her to navigate the halls of power or Main Street in a rustic where race and identity impact how someone is perceived and accepted.
Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is a talented code-switcher, which may involve deliberately altering her speaking style and expression to reinforce the impact of her message and ensure her message is conveyed.
Former President Donald Trump, during a controversial interview session on the National Association of Black Journalists, showed no familiarity with the concept. He suggested that Harris was inauthentic because she embraced all facets of her heritage. His inability to acknowledge code-switching also speaks to the widespread belief that whiteness, often correlated with speaking plain English, is the default in our politics and democracy.
“We need to celebrate all of us, and that means we need to celebrate all of our identities,” said Christine Chen, co-founder and executive director of APIAVote, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization focused on the Asian American Pacific Islander community.
“I think the more a candidate can embrace his multiple identities, the easier it is to connect with different communities and different people who identify with the different issues he supports,” added Chen, who’s Chinese American.
Trump, who falsely suggested at an annual gathering of black journalists that the vp was misleading voters about his race, waded into even murkier waters by insinuating that Harris couldn’t be trusted because she “turned black” after promoting her Native American heritage.
Harris doesn’t need to alter the source code to prove she’s a black American of Indian descent; she was born that way.
Shereen Marisol Meraji, former co-host of NPR’s award-winning podcast “Code Switch,” said Harris’ identity is complex and might still be difficult to navigate in a rustic that when encouraged multiracial people to favor one identity over one other.
“If you go through the world like I do, where I try really hard to accept both sides of myself, it’s like you’re being put through an authenticity test,” said Meraji, who’s of Iranian and Puerto Rican descent.
An assistant professor of race and journalism on the University of California, Berkeley, Meraji added: “The ability to code-switch and enter into different communities … is a huge asset. And I think for people who are competing against Kamala Harris, it’s also quite threatening.”
Many politicians are changing the colour code to make sure that key information is conveyed to voters and constituents with cultural resonance. It’s a well-recognized concept amongst Americans of color, including the 33.8 million individuals who discover as a couple of race, in line with the most recent U.S. Census.
Code-switching is nothing latest, and it’s not a skill entirely foreign to white people. But it stays one of probably the most effective communication tools that politicians of color use to exert influence and gain power in places where they’ve historically lacked it.
Code-switching can increase the likelihood of people who find themselves disadvantaged or ignored as a consequence of systemic racism receiving fair treatment, receiving high-quality services, or finding employment.
When Trump questioned Harris’ race in response to an issue about his own rhetoric on diversity, equity and inclusion, ABC News host Rachel Scott responded by citing elements of the vp’s biography that might prove she is black.
Scott noted that Harris attended Howard University, one of probably the most outstanding historically black colleges and universities within the country. At Howard, Harris pledged the historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. And most significantly, her Jamaican father and Indian mother each immigrated to the U.S. within the Sixties throughout the Civil Rights Movement.
It can be unfaithful that Harris accepted her Black or Native American sexual orientation or switched between them only when it benefited her politically.
In 2003, when Harris was elected district attorney of San Francisco, she told an area newspaper chain that many individuals weren’t used to her identity. “My Native American heritage is just as strong as my African-American heritage. One does not exclude the other,” Harris said.
As a candidate for California attorney general, she spoke of her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who taught her and her sister to “share pride in our culture.” In 2009, Harris told India Abroad, “When you think about it, India is the oldest democracy in the world—so that’s part of my background, and it’s definitely had a huge impact on what I do today and who I am.”
During the 2012 re-election campaign of Barack Obama, the primary black U.S. president, Harris addressed being an outsider in races wherein her opponent could outspend her on ads and endorsements. “I overcame the odds and became the first black female attorney general,” she said, referring to her 2010 election in California.
Trump’s questioning of Harris’ identity, which drew groans and laughter, was reminiscent of his role as a number one proponent of the false theory that Obama is ineligible to change into president because he was not born within the U.S. Trump’s Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, joined Trump on Wednesday in suggesting that Harris is “a fake person who caters to whatever audience is in front of her.”
“I don’t know if you saw this, but earlier this week… she went to Georgia and started speaking in a fake Southern accent,” Vance told the audience at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, referring to Harris’ campaign event in Atlanta, which was attended by a mostly black audience.
Vance, a white man whose wife is Indian American and whose three children are of mixed descent, is just not the primary American politician to concentrate on the speech and accents of politicians of color. In 2010, the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got here under fire for comments he made years earlier suggesting that Obama appealed to voters because he was a light-skinned black man “without any Negro dialect unless he wanted to have it.”
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White politicians have also been known to code-switch when talking to mostly black or Latino audiences, and lots of have done so with various degrees of success. In 2006, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was criticized for adjusting the rhythm of her speech while delivering the eulogy at Coretta Scott King’s funeral at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
The difference is that within the not-so-distant past, white politicians’ profession survival didn’t rely upon their ability to code-switch. Harris still has a special life experience.
Chen said politicians of any race or identity can construct healthy relationships across communities in the event that they show compassion and are attentive to the needs of their constituents.
“Whether you’re white, black or some other identity, how you present yourself in the community will determine whether it’s an authentic relationship,” she said. “You’ll be able to address their concerns more effectively because you’re more educated and you understand what they’re going through.”
Politics and Current
Harris accepts rules for September 10 debate with Trump on ABC, including microphone muting
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President (*10*)Kamala Harris accepted the rules set for next week’s debate with the previous president Donald Trumpalthough the Democratic candidate says the choice to go away each candidates’ microphones on throughout the showdown will work against her.
The announcement, made Wednesday in a letter from Harris’ campaign to host ABC News, appears to mark an end to the microphone muting debate that has threatened to disrupt the presidential debate scheduled for September 10 on the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Harris’ adoption of the debate rules got here as Trump, profiting from an evening he had was proposed as a debate with Harris on Fox News Channel — as a substitute sat down for a solo sit-down with host Sean Hannity in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in preparation for a debate with a longtime ally who asked him about his plans to face the Democratic nominee.
President Joe Biden The campaign made muting microphones, except for the candidate whose turn it was to talk, a condition of its decision to just accept any debates this yr. Some aides said they now regretted that call, saying voters were shielded from hearing Trump’s outbursts in the course of the June debate. The Democratic incumbent’s disastrous performance contributed to his departure from the campaign.
When Harris replaced Biden as her party’s presidential candidate, her campaign advocated for live microphones throughout the debate, saying earlier that the practice would “fully enable substantive exchanges between the candidates.”
But Harris’ advisers said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday that the previous prosecutor “will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format, which will serve to shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the Vice President.”
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“We suspect this is a primary reason his campaign is pushing for microphone muting,” her campaign representative added.
Despite these concerns, the Harris campaign wrote, “we understand that Donald Trump poses a risk if he skips the debate entirely, as he has threatened to do previously, if we do not agree to his preferred format.” In order “not to jeopardize the debate,” the Harris campaign wrote, “we have accepted the full set of rules proposed by ABC, including muted microphones.”
According to a Harris campaign official, a bunch of reporters shall be on hand to listen to what the muted candidate could be attempting to say when his microphone is off. That detail was not included in the total debate rules, also released Wednesday by ABC, that are essentially the identical as those for the June debate between Trump and Biden.
The network set the parameters of the essential format — 90 minutes with two industrial breaks — in line with specifications that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis “will be the only ones asking questions,” presumably in hopes of avoiding an open discussion between the candidates.
“Moderators will endeavor to enforce time limits and ensure that the discussion proceeds in a civilized manner,” the network noted.
A Harris campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to debate debate scheduling, said a candidate who repeatedly interrupts will receive a warning from the moderator, and each candidates’ microphones could also be turned on if there is critical disruption so the audience can understand what is occurring.
After Tuesday’s virtual coin toss, which Trump won, the GOP nominee opted to deliver a closing statement, while Harris selected a podium to the proper of viewers’ screens. There shall be no audience, written notes and no topics or questions shared prematurely with the campaigns or candidates, the network said.
During Wednesday’s meeting with residents, Hannity discussed most of the topics typical of the GOP nominee’s campaign events with Trump, placing particular emphasis on immigration, and took questions after showing video clips of Harris’ media interviews and other appearances.
Trump also shifted attention from Harris to Biden several times, calling the Democratic alternative of his leading candidate a “coup” and stating he would favor a debate with Harris over a town hall meeting.
Asked about next week’s debate, Trump repeated his previous criticism of ABC, calling it a “dishonest” and “unfair” network, while also repeating his previous claims that the Harris campaign “will be answering questions ahead of time.”
The location of Trump’s town hall meeting and next week’s debate in Philadelphia underscore the importance of the important thing area of Pennsylvania, where 19 Electoral College votes shall be up for grabs in November’s election.
Politics and Current
New study identifies distinct black voting blocs
New study sheds light on the various perspectives of black voters and their approaches to numerous election issues.
reports that the Sojourn Strategies study identifies black voters as falling into a number of of 5 categories: civil rights voters, secular progressives, new-generation traditionalists, rightly cynical, and race-neutral conservatives.
According to Katrina Gamble, CEO of Sojourn Strategies, “These clusters indicate that there is “there are incredible differences in the black community in the way people think about democracy and their role in our democracy.”
The survey surveyed 2,034 registered voters and 918 unregistered voters, and their responses indicated that 41% were pro-civil rights voters, who tended to be over 50 years old and had high voter turnout. They were also a gaggle that believed their vote may lead to positive change.
By contrast, the group considered more cynical, making up 22% of respondents, were the youngest and least more likely to vote. Shaped by their experiences with racism and encounters with law enforcement, they felt their votes carried less weight in comparison with what older generations believed.
Next-Gen Traditionalists were probably the most religious and least educated group, made up mostly of millennial and Generation Z voters. They made up 18% of respondents and were a low-turnout group with moderate faith in the ability of voting.
Secular progressives are probably the most progressive group amongst black voters, although they’re relatively small at only 12%. This group can be the probably to vote, and consists mainly of educated women who’re extremely more likely to vote.
The final group, race-neutral conservatives, are likely to be male voters, who’re the second oldest and most conservative group. This group makes up 7% of respondents and has moderate voter turnout, tending to point to systemic barriers to private alternative voting.
According to Sojourn Strategies, several groups have engaged voters in campaigns tailored to extend their participation within the civic process. These groups include the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the New Georgia Project, Black Leaders Organizing Communities in Wisconsin, Michigan’s Detroit Action, Faith In Florida and POWER Interfaith in Pennsylvania.
According to Gamble’s editorial in , “When black people feel powerful, they vote. When they feel powerless, they don’t vote. Simply throwing millions of dollars into advertising, especially at the last minute, will not give black voters the power to make a difference with their votes. Instead, invest in black-led power-building organizations that are already deeply engaged in their local communities.”
Gamble continued: “Ultimately, candidates need to treat black voters like the sophisticated political operatives that they are. They need to understand the nuances and differences in black political thought and behavior. They’re going to have to woo and persuade them. And they need to start now, not after Labor Day.”
Politics and Current
California hairdresser taking care of 6-year-old boy while mother was at work beats child to death with ‘raw wood’ because he wet his pants, prosecutors say
Charlyn Saffore had no reason to suspect anything would go improper when she asked Ernest Lamar Love, a “trusted friend” she met through church, to watch her 6-year-old son, Chance Crawford.
It wasn’t until she got a call from Love that he was taking Chance to the hospital that she realized she was living her worst nightmare.
Love, a 41-year-old barber from Placentia, California, allegedly became so offended with his son after he peed his pants in a park that he tortured and murdered the boy by beating him to death with a “large piece of unfinished wood.”
Love has been charged with one felony count of murder, one felony count of torture and one felony count of child abuse leading to death, according to the Orange County District Procurement’s Office. He has pleaded not guilty and stays in custody without bail.
“I was really surprised. I trusted him with my son,” Saffore said through tears. ABC7 Eyewitness News“He died a brutal death. It was brutal. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
The catastrophic incident began when she dropped Chance off at Love’s Placentia Barber Shop around 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 29. The boy had just finished his third day of first grade, and Saffore was heading to an evening shift as a nurse’s aide at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Love and Saffore met when he was pastor of Amazing Church in Lake Elsinore, where he ministered under the name Azariah and sometimes helped those in need.
“He did the right thing. He helped people move. He helped counsel. He helped people start businesses,” said Jason Welsh, lead pastor at Amazing Church, a visibly shaken voice. Love also reportedly worked in children’s ministry at the church, but was suspended from various positions because of inappropriate behavior toward women.
Love also provided “help” to Chance, whose child he previously babysat.
“He came into my son’s life just as a male figure,” Saffore told Eyewitness News. “He taught him things. He helped him overcome some fears that my son had.”
Surveillance footage from Aug. 29 shows Love entering his barbershop holding a big piece of wood with a “reluctant Chance” behind him. press release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The steam surfaced again around 1:30 a.m. Aug. 30, when Love carried Chance’s battered body into the emergency room at Children’s Hospital Orange County. The boy was unconscious and struggling to breathe. He fell right into a coma and later died of his injuries Sept. 4, after being declared brain dead and brought off life support.
“Doctors at CHOC discovered that Chance was missing a large portion of flesh from his buttocks, leaving open, gaping wounds,” the news release said. “Love is accused of beating the first-grader with a piece of wood, then dousing the open wounds with hydrogen peroxide before forcing the boy to do push-ups, sit-ups and jumping jacks,” the discharge said.
CHOC doctors noted injuries consistent with “violent shaking” and a healing fracture to his scapula, raising concerns that this injury could have occurred previously.
When Love informed Saffore they were going to the hospital, he said Chance had fallen and hit his head while exercising. “That’s hard for me because I believed him when he told me,” the grieving mother told ABC7.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer vows to pursue justice. “Words don’t exist to describe the absolute terror this little boy had to endure — all at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect him, not torture him to death. Now, we, as prosecutors, will do everything in our power to pursue justice for little Chance and be the advocates in death that he didn’t have in life,” he said.
Chance was Saffore’s only child and is described within the book as “intelligent, lively, quick-witted and witty” GoFundMe which was arrange to help cover his funeral costs. “If you had known him, you would have loved him as his entire community loved him,” it reads.
Love faces up to 32 years in prison or life plus five years if convicted on all counts.
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