Talk:Kamala Harris

The consensus version

The consensus version for describing KH's achievement is the first female vice president of the US, the first African-American, and the first Asian-American. I'm on vacation until mid-February 2021. Admins valereee, MelanieN, Drmies, Muboshgu please note and restore; otherwise, the "ethnic" sub-nationalists and trolls will have a field day. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I concur this is the consensus version and I have restored it. "First female" is the first sentence since it is the most reported and most historic. "First African-American and first Asian-American" is the second sentence. Terms like South Asian-American, Jamaican-American, and (per the one I just replaced) Caribbean-American and should not be added without a new discussion and a new consensus. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:00, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

The edits I made did not contradict the overall achievement of Harris being the "First African-American and first Asian-American" Vice President, it simply provided further accurate and separate cited detail regards her own personal family's ancestry. Though I can see the FAQ, I do Respectfully request that someone please guide me to where consensus was actually reached not to include this information. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 17:27, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Bodney, archives, linked at top of page. —valereee (talk) 18:33, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I was unable to spot the RfC in the archives, I now have thanks (maybe a simple specific wiki-link RfC: Should Kamala Harris be described as 'African American' in the lead? to similar previous archived discussions would quickly deal unknowing editors like me in future :) Thanks anyway. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 19:58, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

And Bodney, the additional information about her ancestry is included in the body of the article, just not in the lead. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, the lead reflects the article, but I do agree that not everything can or should be in the lead, especially when an article is likely to be extensive based on her own personal biography. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 19:58, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Should we tweak the FAQ? It says South Asian American throughout, which could be confusing. —valereee (talk) 17:14, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I think it should simply be "Asian American". I believe that is what the sources predominantly say. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

They say Asian-American specifically in reference to being vice president. In that position, she is not only the first South Asian, she is the first Asian. We say South Asian for other positions, such as senator where she was the first South Asian but not the first Asian. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

If one goes far enough back, you will discover the consensus was South Asian-American. Then Sen. Harris was picked by VP Biden to be the VP nominee, and a large number of editors were attracted to this page. South Asian-American is how Sen. Harris identifies, and that is what should matter. Rklahn (talk) 07:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I believe we had consensus that the largest group should be used for the "firsts", so rather than first South Asian-American VP-elect, first Asian American was what we went with. For the senate, first South Asian-American. My question was only whether that needed to be further explained in the FAQs. Not that anyone reads them, but it's good to document what current consensus is. —valereee (talk) 11:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Im not sure such a consensus existed, but I am also not the Oracle of consensus. That begin said, yes, there is value in documenting what the current consensus is. I think it moves us closer to consensus having some of the attributes of Stare decisis. I think that this idea floating around Wikipedia that consensus can be achieved, and in the next moment ignored, counterproductive. Rklahn (talk) 14:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Rklahn, I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're getting at with that final sentence. —valereee (talk) 15:28, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Please tweak the FAQ to reflect her new status. Yes, it should be the first female, first African-American, and first Asian-American, in that order. In my view, Af-Ams takes precedence over As-Ams in the context of the US, not only because they go back further in this history of the US (indeed on average they precede even European Americans), but also because they have played a major role in the creation of the American ethos. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

PS She is and will remain the second female African-American senator and the first South Asian American (senator) in US history. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:13, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, can you clarify what you mean by new status? —valereee (talk) 21:06, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, The point Im getting at is that true consensus on Wikipedia is illusory. On this very page, on this very subject, I worked hard with a group of Editors to achieve a consensus, which we did. Out in the open and on these Talk pages. Less than a week later, that consensus was ignored. So, any move that gets us closer to consensus meaning something is welcome to me. Rklahn (talk) 21:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Rklahn, diffs please? I'm still not following. —valereee (talk) 21:05, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

By new status I meant from senator to VP-nominee (and VP-elect and eventually VP). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:46, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Valereee I cant even find the consensus Im referring to in the Talk Archive. Im reasonably sure it happened before the Talk pages were archived at all, so maybe it got lost in the shuffle. I think at this point the best move for me is to drop the point, which is minor anyways, and to say that I support efforts to document the consensus, whatever it is. Rklahn (talk) 22:09, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

please read the FAQ above--RegentsPark (comment) 13:55, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

First African American is disingenuous (at the very least) to say she is African American. Her father was Jamaican...how is this a qualifier for African American inclusion? The last I checked Jamaica was in the Caribbean and not on the continent of Africa. My asking this question and pointing out the obvious probably makes me a racist and surely a half dozen other socially stigmatizing labels. Though an answer would be appreciated. Signed an unimportant IP address editor.2600:1700:7610:41E0:C5FD:ED64:EB06:3ADA (talk) 22:58, 16 December 2020 (UTC) How do you think the Afro-Jamaicans wound up in Jamaica? Magic? Volunteer Marek 23:04, 16 December 2020 (UTC) Read the FAQ at the top of the page. This has been answered countless times already. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC) Wow! what a friendly and courteous answer from a arrogant and aggressive editor. I asked a question and I get sarcasm. Though in your response you do agree with me and yourself call her Afro-Jamaican and not African-American...hmm...interesting...don't ya think? This is probably why this article and many others do not get improved and only sink deeper into the abyss. The second response was much friendlier and appreciated. Thank you. Though I still find it inaccurate and barring a family tree likely inaccurate to be described as it is. Wouldn't one of the terms Black Caribbean, Afro or Black West Indian or Afro or Black Antillean or Afro-Jamaican (as the first respondent used) to be more accurate in describing her ancestry seeing as no documentation or family tree is provided or cited within the article itself. I would think an encyclopedia should be as factual and reference filled before taking a large leap (of faith with assumption) such as this article has done. Thank you and have a blessed day. 2600:1700:7610:41E0:64D8:8847:54E7:E855 (talk) 09:57, 17 December 2020 (UTC) I am Australian and only drop in here occasionally. To answer the comments above, her father was Afro-Jamaican. As she is American, that makes her both Afro-American and Jamaican-American. In Australia, we have politicians who were child immigrants from Malaysia, but they are both Malaysian-Australian and Chinese-Australian. As with many people, if you look at enough generations, you find all sorts of interesting history. --Scott Davis Talk 10:37, 17 December 2020 (UTC) This is well covered ground. Countless editors have spent a long time discussing this, and 2600:1700:7610:41E0:64D8:8847:54E7:E855, you have brought nothing new to the conversation, and ask the same questions countless editors have asked. Please take the time to cover the discussions in the archives. And what the heck? Ill repeat this too. You are confusing race with ethnicity. Race is grouping based on society's view. Ethnicity is grouping based on how people see themselves in common with others. Ms. Harris race is unimportant. Her ethnicity is paramount. She is African-American and South Asian-American. Rklahn (talk) 14:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

One issue that deserves a lot more attention in this article is her relationship with Willie Brown. While a 29-year-old deputy district attorney, Harris had an affair with then 60-year leader of the California legislature Willie Brown. While they were dating, Brown appointed Harris to two paid commission posts, and effectively jump-started her political career. As she would likely never have had a political career otherwise, an item of this significance should be prominently mentioned, perhaps in the lede. Certainly it deserves more than part of a sentence buried deep within the article. Vinny Gambino (talk) 22:24, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

We have discussed the Willie Brown connection many times, and seemed to reach a consensus that presents the facts in a balanced encyclopedic way with an appropriate amount of weight. That being said, if you have a proposed edit, let's talk about it. Rklahn (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I also have a few of questions regarding Harris' past employment history, specifically her being hired as Alameda county Deputy DA in 1990 (she was 26-years-old). Two of the requirements for that job is almost always to have clerked for a judge and have experience as an attorney in private practice or as a Deputy DA. Harris had neither. In fact, she never had a job until she was given her Deputy DA job. It should be noted in the article, in my opinion, that she had a resume that should have precluded her from getting that job. She claims to have gotten "involved" with Willie Brown in 1994. Well, the lack of a worthy or notable resume seems to indicate someone - someone of considerable influence - pulled strings to get her that Deputy DA job in 1990. Willie Brown was certainly someone who at that time, being Speaker of the CA Assembly, could have arranged her employment as a Deputy DA in Alameda county. Alameda county was in his district at that time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:9000:6201:a79b:2913:a3bc:f1d3:c561 (talk)

Your opinion of the matter has no bearing whatsoever on a Wikipedia article. If you have an actual suggestion of an addition to an article, then by all means produce one, sourced to a reliable source. Zaathras (talk) 04:26, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the requirements are that high. See for example Indeed's list of open positions.[1] IIRC, there was little interest among graduates to work for the county DA. In any case, you would need a source that said their was something exceptional about this. Otherwise, it's just a case of a law grad getting an entry level job that paid below average. TFD (talk) 20:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit request

Request to change "On November 19, 2021, Harris served as acting president from 10:10 to 11:35 am EST, while President Biden underwent a "routine colonoscopy". She was the first female (third person overall) to assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency." to "On November 19, 2021, Harris served as acting president from 10:10 am EST to 11:35 am EST while President Biden underwent a "routine colonoscopy". She became the first woman, and the third person overall, to formally assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency." The latter is more gramatically correct than the former in terms of its usage of consistent application of time standard as well as in terms of removing any need for unnecessary & frankly unsightly parentheses from the latter sentence pertaining to her being the first woman and third person overall to ascend to the acting presidency. Moreover, the use of the word "formally" is called for because she is only the first woman and third person overall to have done so formally per the constitutional procedures established by the 25th Amendment; there are those who would argue, on the basis of a litany of reliable sources, that she's neither the first woman to assume the powers of the presidency on account of Edith Wilson's existence & actions during her husband's 2nd term (referred to on the Edith Wilson page) nor the third person overall to do so because Nixon did so twice during Eisenhower's presidency in accordance with his pre-25th agreement with Eisenhower (once in 1955, once in 1956, both referred to on the 25th Amendment page). Hence, "formally." Brucejoel99 (talk) 20:26, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Note: before seeing that you had started this thread I changed the sentence to read: She became the first female (third person overall) to assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency under Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Does this work for you? Drdpw (talk) 20:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Not really, as it doesn't address any of the aforementioned grammatical concerns & frankly just makes the sentence read more clunky. The 25th doesn't need to be explicitly mentioned; the word "formally" is more than ample enough. If your suggestion works for a majority of others, then so be it, but I personally am not of the opinion that that is how it should read, hence why I still suggested & provided ample reasoning for what I suggested. Brucejoel99 (talk) 20:40, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Best to change it back, the way it was. As for Edith Wilson? please don't, just don't. GoodDay (talk) 00:39, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

There is no call for the use of "formally" here, the urban legends about Edith Wilson running the government in her bedridden husband's stead are not relevant to the biography of Kamala Harris. ValarianB (talk) 13:12, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, it is more than an urban legend: she herself admitted that she was in charge, & the executive branch of the federal government itself has since done the same. Again, though, what I'm advocating for here isn't a matter of Edith Wilson so much as a mere matter of seeking minimal writing of maximum clarity: aside from the issue of wanting to make the paragraph more grammatically clear than it currently is, the simple use of the word "formally" as opposed to the current wording or the proposed writing-out of "Section 3 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment" would simply make clear - without having to render the paragraph more grammatically clunky than it already is by fully writing-out the "Section 3 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment" proposal - that VP Harris' tenure as Acting President was undertaken in the formal, constitutionally-prescribed manner rather than any informal manners that the likes of Wilson & Nixon were forced to deal with & which are clearly well-known to many who may come across this article (after all, if they weren't well-known, then this matter wouldn't even be under discussion here on this talk page to begin with). Neither Wilson nor Nixon need to be explicitly mentioned in this article on Kamala Harris &, crucially, that's not what is even being advocated for here: what I'm simply advocating for is a grammatically clear middle-ground between the vague, grammatically-clunky writing that currently exists in the status quo & the over-specific, grammatically-clunky writing that would exist by virtue of the earlier-proposed writing-out of "Section 3 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment." My proposal entailing "formally" would be such a bridging, grammatically-clear middle-ground: minimal writing of maximum clarity. Brucejoel99 (talk) 17:14, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

As long as any aspect of the "formally" nonsense is dropped, I'm fine with the grammatical changes. ValarianB (talk) 18:54, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

That's fine, thanks. Again, though, there was an arguably legitimate compelling reason - minimal writing of maximum clarity - offered as to why the mere addition of the word "formally" wouldn't constitute "nonsense," & I'd note that the merits of said reason as offered in my last response were rather conspicuously not even responded to by anything other than a reworded repetition of what said reason was itself responding to in the first place. It's possible to just state one's rationale as to why one may still genuinely disagree on the matter of whether or not said offered reason is legitimately compelling - even though it was already made perfectly clear that not only do neither Wilson nor Nixon need to be explicitly mentioned in this article on Kamala Harris, but that that's not what's even being advocated for here to begin with - rather than resort to just being generally disagreeable :) Brucejoel99 (talk) 19:35, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Distinct Use of "Female" or "Woman"

So I just had the previously-agreed-to grammatical edit reverted because "'female' not 'woman' is used elsewhere in the article, and EST needs only to be stated once to be applicable to both in the same phrase." I concede the EST point, which makes perfectly valid sense, but elsewhere in the article, "female" is only used twice: in the context of "She is the [United States'] first female vice president[,/and] the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history," specifically in the article introduction as well as the first paragraph of the "Vice presidency (2021-present)" section. In contrast, "woman" is used numerous more times in more relevant contexts: specifically, in the second paragraph of the article introduction to denote that she "bec[a]me the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate," in the second paragraph of the 2010 section to denote that "she is the first woman, the first African American, and the first South Asian American to hold the office of Attorney General in the state's history," in the third paragraph of "Vice presidential campaign" to denote that "she was the only African American woman with the political experience typical of vice presidents," in the fourth paragraph of that same section to denote that she was "the third woman after Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin to be picked as the vice-presidential nominee for a major party ticket," and in the first paragraph of "Awards and honors" to denote that she was identified "as a woman with potential to become president of the United States." Given the applied wording of the relevant sentence at hand - "She became the first [female/woman], and the third person overall, to assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency under Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment," it would appear to me that consistency with the rest of the article - in particular, consistency with the rest of the article's grammatical application as applied to sentences that involve a denotation of Harris "becom[ing]" something, most specifically how she "bec[a]me the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate" and, to a lesser extent, how she was identified as "a woman with potential to become president of the United States" - would require use of the word woman in this sentence so that it reads (emphasis added in italics) "She became the first woman, and the third person overall, to assume the powers and duties of the U.S. presidency under Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment." Yes? Brucejoel99 (talk) 20:55, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Given that it’s used more often, I will reverse the change and reinsert 'woman'. Drdpw (talk) 23:17, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Valid critique missing

Of course, we all respect vice-presidents of America, but we should really allow criticisms to be posted here. In recent times, Harris has received critical evaluations from a number of publications, from the left and right, let me please allow to post that criticism, according to wikipedia protocol. Thank you. Osterluzei (talk) 01:21, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

There are a number of criticisms mentioned throughout the article already. EvergreenFir (talk) 01:35, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Osterluzei, I appreciate you coming to the talk page. What criticisms need to be added? I don't really see how one opinion poll is sufficient. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:41, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

If there is WP:SIGCOV, then its fair game. As long as it doesn't breach any WP:BLP. Critiques are allowed. Doesn't matter of who. EliteArcher88 (talk) 00:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:SIGCOV is about creating articles, not what goes into them. TFD (talk) 00:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Five or Seven

I am seeing conflicting numbers from different sources:

Sept 2015 https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

Her parents, Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris, met as graduate students at UC Berkeley. They divorced when Harris was 5.

Jan 2019 https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/the-indian-ness-of-kamala-harris-the-female-barack-obama-set-to-contest-the-next-us-elections-2010349.html

When Harris' father, Donald Harris, who teaches economics at Stanford, and her mother separated, Harris was 7 years old.

The only way I could see BOTH being correct is if they "divorced", but remained together another two years before "separating" ?

How do we decide which number is correct? Kamala (born October 1964) turned five Oct'69, six Oct'70, seven Oct'71, eight Oct'72.

I had previously seen listed on the Shyamala Gopalan article that she divorced in 1971 but no source was listed. I just changed it to 1970 based on the 2015 article from LA Times before learning of this News18 source saying 7 instead of 5.

LA Times said the divorce happened in the "early 70s" in a later October 2019 article : https://archive.md/https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-25/how-kamala-harris-indian-family-shaped-her-political-career which is why I asserted it was 1970 and not 1969 (as she was five in Oct/Nov/Dec)

Can we find any other news sources giving Kamala's age at the divorce (or maybe calling out the divorce year explicitly) to break this tie? WakandaQT (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2021 (UTC)