If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. — Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to Congress and the first African American to run for President of the United States. While she did not get too far in her quest she did manage to inspire a generation of young women, including me. Somehow her courage taught me to be more fearless than I had once been. I began to speak up whenever I witnessed injustice. I used my ability with words and suddenly found courage to speak up for people too vulnerable to advocate for themselves. Eventually my boldness led to being a Peer Facilitator for teachers and then the Dean of Faculty for a group of extraordinary educators. 

I often found myself in a position of having to take a deep breath to dismiss my fears as I fought for what I believed was best for both the students and the teachers. I fully understood the difficulties they encountered and knew that there were times when their voices and needs were being ignored. I had evolved from a girl afraid of her own shadow to a woman who was unwilling to stay silent when problems needed to be addressed. I sometimes rubbed the powers that be the wrong way, but I kept my honor and dignity intact. 

I have to be bluntly open about my profound disappointment that the American electorate once again took a pass on the opportunity to finally put a woman in the office of President of the United States. The voters seem more inclined to risk going with a deranged and felonious man rather than a highly educated, intelligent and experienced woman. For the rest of of my days I will not understand the reasoning of the millions of people who thought it better for the country to trust a man known for lies, egregious insults and the bungling of a worldwide pandemic. 

I wonder if the people even took the time to listen to each candidate and to compare and contrast what they had to say. Donald Trump peddled hate and fear. He called the United States of America a garbage dump. He spoke so grotesquely about Kamala Harris that in another time that alone would have been enough reason not to vote for him. He implied that she slept her way to the top and only rose in the ranks because of DEI rules. He even questioned her race. The words he used about her are not fit for printing so I will refrain from writing them down.

So who is Kamala Harris really? She is the child of a Black father and a mother from India. She graduated from Howard University and eventually earned a law degree. She worked as a District Attorney and then as the Attorney for the state of California. She spent time as a Congresswoman in the House of Representatives and became the Vice President of the United States during the Presidency of Joe Biden. 

Kamal Harris was never an immigration czar as Trump liked to call her, but she did research the problems at the border resulting in an eventual reduction in the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States. In fact when statistics are compared it is evident that just as many illegals entered during Trump’s tenure as President as they did during the past four years. With Harris’ efforts the numbers were going down. Trump has greatly exaggerated the problems and failed to mention that when a bipartisan immigration bill was proposed he asked Republicans to cause it to fail so that he would have an issue to use in his run for the presidency. Imagine losing an opportunity to actually fix the problems just to make him look better. 

Most people seemed confused that Kamala Harris did not have the power of the presidency because she was not the President. She had nothing to do with the difficulties in the pull out from Afghanistan.In fact that fiasco was signed into a treaty that Trump brokered and as soon as he was elected the Taliban congratulated him and thanked him for the treaty that resulted in a disastrous situation. Nor was she or even Biden the cause of the price of eggs or oil. Avian flu killed countless chickens and oil is priced internationally, not by the President. Surely Trump knows how things work but he forgot to mention the restrictions on the power of a Vice President. Perhaps he was till angry that his own Vice President who refused to defy the Constitution by accepting a made up slate of electoral votes in the certification of the 2020 election. Maybe he did not want JD Vance to realize that under Trump he will be forced to be a loyal puppet.

Kamala Harris ran a campaign of joy and optimism. When voters were blindly shown her platform without naming her as the author they universally chose it over the concept of a plan from Trump. She warned us about the problems of tariffs and how they will actually add to the costs of many of the products that Americans use. Over thirty Nobel prize winning economists agreed with her. Instead Harris advocated for raising the taxes of the wealthiest one percent and lowering those of the middle class.

She had plans for bolstering Social Security and Medicare and providing families financial assistance for to care of our oldest citizens in their homes. She had plans for helping our young working people purchase a first time home, something that seems father and farther out of reach for them right now. 

Kamala Harris promised to do her best to unify the country after years of infighting between the two political parties. She wanted to name Republicans for her cabinet and heal the wounds that Trump has inflicted on our nation for over eight years. There was nothing outlandish or mean about her. She is a brilliant and compassionate woman who proved her mettle in a debate which she won against an addled Trump who went off in unintelligible and hateful rants about Haitians eating the dogs and eating the cats .

I am saddened that the Americans took a pass on this remarkable woman, often for the silliest reasons most of which are not even true. As I watch Trump selecting inexperienced and questionable people for his cabinet only because of their sworn loyalty I am dumbfounded. I wonder if he even knows that they are supposed to be swearing their allegiance to the Constitution which he seems more than willing to rip apart. He is an unserious man who somehow managed to defeat a very serious woman. For now I weep for my nation and hope that somewhere an American woman will pull up a folding chair and finally find a way to the official table.