Kamala Harris, a Caribbean’s dilemma, contaminated with a controversial disillusion

Dear Editor,
Congratulations to both, a well-deserved US President-elect, Joseph Robinette Biden, an American Caucasian with maternal Irish roots and paternal British/French/Irish roots; and his Vice President-elect, Kamala Devi Harris, an American Black and South Asian female, with maternal roots from India and paternal roots from Jamaica. In Ireland, people celebrated jubilantly in the streets of Ballina for their hometown hero, Joe Biden, while, in the village of Thulasendrapuram, Tamil Nadu, prayers were said at the mandir and villagers set off firecrackers for their pride, a world celebrity, Kamala Harris. It is not known whether Jamaica celebrated with the same exuberance.
Being of both Indian Tamil and Afro-Jamaican ancestry, Kamala Harris is a multiracial American. Harris will be the first female Vice President in US history, and will also be the first African American and first Asian American to hold the post. She will be the highest-ranking female elected official in United States history, and the third person with acknowledged non-European ancestry to reach either of the highest elected offices in the federal executive branch.
It is capricious how certain people want to hug the limelight of Kamala Harris suddenly, because of her overnight stardom and associate with her ancestry in a limited capacity, confining her roots to a careful and selected convenience. Some have particularly eliminated her South Asian maternal generations and only refer to her paternal specification, recognising her with a Black American and Caribbean identity. Poised to proliferate and punctuate her black Jamaican father as a focal centre, there is a pain-staking inclusivity that is warily missing.
It is so obvious that these individuals chose to deliberately disregard any mention of Kamala’s mother because it means giving credit to an Indian and only address the issue of her father, and also because kudos can be paid to an Afro Jamaican who hails from the Caribbean.
Is jamoon plucking and gooseberry discarding a case of sour grapes? Is an alignment to a Black placement more favourable and easily accessible than an Indian inheritor? Why is there mention of this blatant presence of a Black sensitivity only? Is the Indian component not worthy to mention, or, is there no need to respect this value? History is being distorted and a convoluted theme is being incorrectly highlighted with a misplacement of true and collaborative identity.
To distinguish one root and overlook the other, serves a racial biasness and reflects the prejudice thinking that is so prevalent in those who want to obviously segregate the Blacks from others and to promote a preferential personality with an assumed superiority, even if it is momentary. This careful and calculated adumbration is mischievous, premediated with an agitated purpose and politically motivated to create devious aspersions.
A woman’s intuition and affection are sadly missing, concealed in provoked interpretations and hidden in sarcastic deliberations. Any projector, especially with a woman’s perception, would accommodate a feminine intuition to explore the feminine composition and elements which incorporate VP-elect, Kamala Harris as a wife, mother, sister and daughter, bearing an origin in particular, to Shyamala Gopalan, a divorced mother, who happens to be a South Asian woman. Kamala was brought up in an Indian cultured environment also and obeisance should be paid to this qualitative effort, unsuppressed by her characteristics. To do otherwise, is it an exercise of displaying nescience or a displacement of personality?
Kamala Harris has visited both India and Jamaica to explore the genesis of both her father and mother. She is married to an American Jew, Douglas Emhoff, who also is an attorney. It is interesting to note how the world is reacting and what happened yesterday in Europe. A member of the Northern Ireland Assembly received heavy criticism on Monday for referring to United States Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as “the Indian” on Twitter.
Yesterday, Lord Kilclooney, a member of the House of Lords, said: “What happens if Biden moves on and the Indian becomes President? Who then becomes Vice President?” Lord Fowler, the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, demanded that his peer apologise. “Lord Kilclooney should retract and apologise,” he said on Twitter on Monday. “This is an offensive way to refer to anyone, let alone a woman who has just made history.” “The comment is entirely unacceptable and has no place in British politics. I could not be clearer,” he said.
The 56-year-old California Senator, also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, represents the multiculturalism that defines the United States, but is largely absent from Washington’s power centres. The Indian PM Modi congratulated Kamala Harris but did not refer to her origin with an Indian identity. But the Jamaican PM Holness was specific, “America will have its first female Vice President in the person of Kamala Harris, and we are proud that she bears Jamaican heritage,” he said. PM Holness hugged and embraced a Jamaican heritage and did not protect or single out a Caribbean or American Black root. This conversation for claim will continue with conceited quibbles, curious questions, confused queries, cautious quarrels, concerned qualms, challenging quizzes and conscious quests, only to quell in a quiver of satirical comedy!

Respectfully,
Jai Lall