One of Kamala Harris’s most memorable moments during the 2020 presidential election cycle was when, during a Democratic primary debate, she sharply criticized Joe Biden for working with segregationists in the Senate in their shared opposition to busing.
She personalized her criticism, saying: “There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day.
And that little girl was me.”The power in the attack was not only the point being made but that she — a person affected from a group affected — was making it.
Although some of Biden’s defenders saw her remark as a gratuitous broadside, there was an authenticity to the way she confronted the issue.
The verbal jab also aligned with the national zeitgeist at a time when calls for racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement were ascendant.
Persons:
Kamala Harris’s, Joe Biden, —
Organizations:
segregationists
Locations:
California