Vice President Kamala Harris will share her consummate empowerment strategies with women in Africa throughout a week-long junket, March 26-April 1, according to a White House press statement. The visit begins at Accra, Ghana, with scheduled appearances in Tanzania and Zambia, and will continue the relationship-building process President Joe Biden’s administration has started. Harris will “strengthen people-to-people ties and engage with civil society, including young leaders, business representatives, entrepreneurs, and members of the African Diaspora.”
That’s a helluva of a task for the woman who has not been doing much on behalf of her constituents. But Harris’ laundry list of things to do in Africa includes “the economic empowerment of women.” Wherever will she begin?
During the December 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit in DC, Harris explained why the hard press to become besties with the continent. China and Russia are courting Africa: “Our administration will be guided not by what we can do for Africa but what we can do with Africa.” Ah, strategy.
Accomplishments of a Woman of Color
The VP has a long and storied list of privileges not often afforded to women of a certain age and certainly not one with a pedigree of Jamaican and Indian roots scraping out a living after immigrating to the United States. No, Harris was born to two highly educated parents: her mother, a biologist, and her father, an economics professor. There would be no hard work for scholarship dollars; the road to university was already paved. So, would that mean questions about her meteoric rise to the second-in-command position must start after graduation from a prestigious secular institution? A young African woman may resent being lectured to about the struggles Harris endured.
And what about that first job out of law school? Harris was hired as deputy district attorney for Alameda County in Northern California and, by all reports, was good at her job. But an encounter in 1994 with then-Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown launched her on a somewhat predictable career. Brown took a political and personal interest in dating the young and attractive Harris for several years. During their affair, he appointed her to several lucrative positions that newcomers are not generally afforded and she ascended rapidly.
Maybe the relationship with political powerhouse Brown will inspire Harris to explain to women clamoring for equal pay and opportunity that it’s not so much what you know but who you know. The strategy was in the Harris playbook from day one.
The vice president moved up the ladder in California law and order and was rumored in legal and political circles to have put more men of color in prison than her Caucasian colleagues. Former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard once described Harris’ record this way:
“She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. She blocked evidence — she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.”
That must be when the struggle became real.
Harris Checks the Boxes
Kamala Harris (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Identity politics in the fictional dictionary of modern phrases will show the current VP as its poster child. She is a woman: check. She is colorful: check. And she has an education and a decent resume. Gabbard aside, who else could Biden possibly send to Africa on a diplomatic mission? Harris has been involved in the issues African leaders are hungry to hear about. She handled economic and bank fraud cases in her home state, is leading the charge for voting rights — especially for people of color and minorities — and understands the root causes of food insecurity. All these topics are on the docket that the African delegation will discuss. The weighty group includes three country presidents and a host of community activists and leaders.
It will be a long week for Harris and the Second Gentleman, but it is expected to be productive on behalf of the administration. Perhaps Harris will woo the Africans away from the Russians and Chinese and win the heart and soul of the continent. And, of course, African women hoping to learn a few Harris tricks of the trade.
But, of course, if the Africans want to talk border security, the diplomatic visit may go south.
