Kamala Harris: Black, South Asian women in Wisconsin see step forward

For a generation of children of color, like Amara Porter, who grew up with the nation’s first Black president, the inauguration of the nation’s first female, Black and South Asian vice president is a reminder that anything is possible. “Women can be where men have been for centuries. We can do it. It takes that to another level,” said Porter, a 15-year-old from Stevens Point who’s Black and biracial. “And in talking with my friends, it just makes us a lot happier, just knowing there is a woman in politics that high up. It’s just a good feeling.”Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris will take office with President-Elect Joe Biden on Wednesday just as the formative years of young people of color such as Porter begin. It’s a time when they begin to chart out their lives and find their own political voices.

Rupi Kaur, a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student, said it was inspiring to see someone who looks like her elected vice president. Kaur wants to go to graduate school for counseling studies after learning about how few therapists of color there are. She sees Harris as a South Asian role model.

“I feel like when she’s addressing individuals, she doesn’t shy away from saying, ‘Yeah, I am a person of color,'” Kaur said. “When there was that vice-presidential debate, I liked how she didn’t let Mike Pence talk over her. And, as a woman of color, I know… I have a tendency to stop talking if someone else is talking. I like that she stands her ground and is strong.”

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