5.28 PM pacific standard time, the cameras focused on a historic moment. Kamala Harris walked out in resplendent suffragette white, a bow to 100 years of history, a signature that signified the struggles of several generations to make the moment possible.
With her first words, quoting John Lewis, the moment was complete. This massive vessel of unlimited opportunity, otherwise known as the United States of America, was heading towards an iceberg, and the American people just managed to pull it back from the brink into safer waters.
History turns with unpredictable bends. The long road to the second-highest position in the First Nation of this world began in the so-called Third world. Impoverished in body and mind by imperialism, 1958-India was not hospitable to aspiring women. A young 19-year-old Tamil Brahmin girl dared to break glass, encouraged by her parents to reach 8000 miles away from conservative Chennai to liberal Berkeley. Oftentimes we are bound not as much by society but our own inhibitions and the need to fit in. It must have tormented a 19-year-old to choose between fitting in as a submissive house maker or blazing a trail in a faraway land.
We are products of our choices. President-elect Joe Biden, in his 2008 acceptance speech, said, “You know, I believe the measure of a man isn't just the road he's traveled; it's the choices he's made along the way.”
The choices Dr. Shyamala Gopalan made every step of her journey paved the way for her daughter to be who she is today. A rebel in every way standing on the broad shoulders of broad-minded parents, dreaming and daring to look far and wide, defying the mores of a Madras girl, she made the brave trip to Berkeley.
Berkeley in the 60s captured the imagination of the nation. Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris was born just as what is now known as the “Free Speech Movement protests” were kicking off. The origin of campus activism was born in 1958, the very same year Dr. Shyamala Gopalan set foot in Berkeley as a new student. Keeping with the theme of pivotal moments that serve as hairpin bends of history, Dr. Donald Harris would arrive in Berkeley in 1961 on a Jamaican government scholarship. Dr. Shyamala and Dr. Harris met after his speech at a meeting of the Afro American Association. Two years later, Kamala was born. It wasn’t until just before her first birthday, would black women be able to exercise their right to vote.
It is still that strange year, 2020. 55 years since that day when the voting rights act of 1965 was passed, it doesn’t get any less strange. “Stop the count” screamed the president.
Women have been fighting for years to be counted. A hundred years is a very long time with uncountable hurdles for every citizen to participate in the pantheon of democracy. The gap between the purpose of the 19th amendment and the practice of actual suffrage was too large. African American women had to endure and overcome the poll tax, literacy tests, and violence to make their case and it is hard to believe that in 2020 that this would still be the case in the world's oldest democracy where the head of the nation and millions of his followers would rather not count every vote.
Many native Americans were not made citizens till 1924 and even then couldn’t vote till the 1965 voting rights act. Asian Americans were ineligible to become citizens on account of their race well until 1943.
So, this accomplishment of our VP elect is a big deal even when the need to fight for rights is never a done deal.
The real work will begin, but this is a moment for celebration. Four years of held breath outpoured into the open streets in joy. Cars honked, and children danced, reveling in their parents rejoicing on a return to decency.
“Thank God, democracy won out!” said Senator Sanders. As a nation, we were slipping dangerously into the waters of incompetent autocracy with a dismissive attitude towards a raging pandemic, questioning science and sense. A small but a definitive tilt to blue does not erase the 70 million votes cast for the continuation of chaos, but we have the right healer in chief to build the bridge to a better nation.
President Obama’s audacity of hope dared us to reimagine the American dream. Decades later, with many ups and downs, we are at the doorstep of renewed hope.
“But while I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities,” said Senator and VP Elect Kamala Harris.
As we recover from the social wreck of the past four years, the words of P.B Shelley, the great poet, rings loud.
“To hope until hope creates from its very own wreck the thing it contemplates”
Good luck President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.