Vice President Kamala Harris is a race hustler, a divider when the nation needs a unifier.
If Democrats make Harris the nominee for the nation’s top job, Americans will be given a stark choice in November: between racial preferences and fairness. A President Harris would rub raw the racial divisions in this country and ignite new violence in our streets.
In 2020, it was then-Sen. Harris who cheered on the Black Lives Matter protesters terrorizing neighborhoods and businesses after the tragic death of George Floyd. It was Harris who urged Americans to put up cash bail for BLM protesters arrested in Minneapolis for attempted murder, burglary, and other crimes.
In 2023, it was Harris who bashed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that colleges must base admissions on merit, not skin color. She rejected the court’s ideal of a colorblind society, arguing that being colorblind is being blind to “the strength that diversity brings to classrooms, to boardrooms.”
The Washington Post and Time magazine published reviews this week of where Harris stands on the issues. Racial preferences were conspicuously omitted. No wonder. Her views are toxic.
Harris telegraphed what she would do, given the authority, in a 2020 campaign ad explaining the difference between equality and equity. It pictured a Black man and a white man, and said equality means “everyone should get the same amount.” But treating everyone equally regardless of race is wrong, she went on, because “not everybody’s starting out from the same place.” Equity means “we all end up at the same place.”
Using racial preferences to ensure all Americans end up in the same place — a nauseatingly un-American goal — is Harris’ agenda.
Harris has been the driving force behind the Biden administration’s all-of-government push for equity in hiring, job promotions, and government benefits. Translation: White males go to the back of the line.
Biden told radio host Charlamagne tha God during the 2020 campaign that if he had trouble deciding how to vote — for Biden or Trump — then “you ain’t Black.” Biden’s racial views are not sophisticated..
Harris, on the other hand, embraced a sophisticated rationale — equity.
On Jan. 21, 2021, one day after the inauguration, the administration announced its governmentwide push for equity. Her fingerprints are all over it.
Buried in the administration’s first major legislation, the American Rescue Plan, is debt relief for farmers. Not all farmers, however. White farmers need not apply. Section 1005 provided hundreds of thousands of no-strings debt forgiveness for “socially disadvantaged” farmers, a term defined elsewhere in federal law based solely on ethnicity and race.
The same kind of discrimination marred the bill’s aid to restaurant owners, granting them up to $5 million per facility, but there’s a hitch. Only women, veterans, and owners from “socially disadvantaged” racial groups could apply during the program’s first three weeks. White male restaurant owners go to the back of the line, and hope the program’s money didn’t run out.
Sounds more like reparations legislation than COVID-19 relief.
Reparations without the label.
Fortunately, federal judges struck down these racist provisions. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amul Thapar cited Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2007 plurality opinion declaring that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Harris doesn’t believe that.
Harris took a lot of heat in 2022 for suggesting Hurricane Ian aid would be distributed based on “equity.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s proposed infrastructure legislation, Build Back Better, was also chock full of anti-white racism. Contractors and subcontractors would get priority only if they were owned by minorities or women. White male business owners could take a hike, even if they were in depressed areas.
Far-left members of Congress are eyeing a Harris presidency to push forward with equity, by executive order if necessary. In February, members of Congress led by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Biden and Harris, urging them to appoint a reparations committee in Congress and reminding them that “seventy-two million-plus voters” supported them “in large part due to promises and ideas about equity.”
Biden is toast, but Harris is poised to put equity into action.
Would a Harris presidency be peaceful? Maybe not. When BLM protesters took to the streets in 2020, Harris said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that the protesters “are not going to stop. They’re not.” She added, “And they should not, and we should not.”
Fair warning.
Racism won’t cure past racism. And race warrior Harris won’t heal the nation.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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