Top Ten of 2019: Part 4 - Kamala & Diane

4. Kamala Harris

Senator Kamala Harris was like a professional level tennis player, and Bill Barr was a country club amateur who thought he understood how to play the game.  Barr may have sparred against people of the caliber of Senator Harris, however it was very clear in this exchange that he had never had dealt with a powerful Black women of authority. You could see that his brain couldn’t compute how someone who looked like Senator Harris could be beating him so effortlessly in this exchange. Senator Harris sensed this, having dealt with men like Barr, who had low expectations for Harris because of her race and gender.

So she leaned in, let Burr have it, and I cheered.



We have far too few people in power who are women and far too few people of color in power. Senator Harris is the perfect intersectionality between these two facets of identity. Most people have bosses that are white men, so most people when they think of elevating people to positions of power look to white men. Senator Harris pushed through this, against the odds and became on of the most powerful and important voices in 2019.

In hearing after hearing, Senator Harris demonstrated the strength of her intellect, and never let herself be badgered or intimidating by witness who looked down on her and underestimated her. These white men who never had dealt with a Black women in power looked like fools as their own prejudice ill-equipped them to handle this master litigator. These hearings revealed crimes, and also prejudice and racism in the witness an also in Republican committee members who tried, unsuccessfully to hinder Senator Harris’ work.

No, Senator Harris will not win the Presidential election in 2020. That doesn’t mean that her campaign was a waste of time. Her message was powerful, important, and inspiring. She got further than any other Black woman had ever gotten in a primaries. Yes, systemic racism within the structure of the Democratic primary process hindered her work, but she stayed in the fight like she did so many other times when the game was set up for her to lose.

I was energized when she announced she was running for president and I was crushed when she announced that she was suspending her campaign. Close to the time when a billionaire literally bought his way onto a debate stage with his own money, Senator Harris’ struggles with campaign finances, highlighted one of the great inequities in our country.

I am so grateful for Senator Harris. With multiple systems of oppression working against her, she has done more than most imagined for her. Her position, and her intellect is an affront to the racists and sexists in America, and her continued deliberate use of her position to inspire and elevate others continues to motivate me to be a better citizen.

Senator Harris' campaign gave our collective imagination of a vision of what will be, a Black woman president. This glimpse, this idea that a Black woman could reach the highest office awoke in myself, and many other Americans that there is greater potential in those who do not have power in our system than we currently see, and we need to do something to change that.

Those who are working desperately to maintain power in the white patriarchy may have seen a victory when Senator Harris dropped out of the campaign.  However, they will be rudely reminded of her power in the impeachment hearings, and the growing number of Black woman inspired by Senator Harris, who will reach positions of power, and make reality Senator Harris' vision for America.


3. Diane Guerrero

It was a short scene, from the perspective of a person passing by a room.

A dingy courtroom was filled with children. These children were wearing dirty clothing. They looked tired, confused and scared. At the front of the room a child, not much older than my own 6-year-old son, Ollie, stood there in the front of the court. The judge as the child if he understood that he was accused of the crime of illegally crossing the border. The child stared back the judge, clearly not understanding the judge’s words and the situation.  Tears were in my eyes as I watched this scene.

This scene from the last season of Orange Is The New Black was unforgettable. It was the portraying what has been going on at the border as our government continues to separate children from their families and try them in courts. Often parents are sent out of America without their children. Sometime the children stay in America as our government has essentially kidnapped these children.

There are many horrible policies, and crimes, trump and his administration is responsible for and one of the worst is what they are doing to people who attempting to cross the border, many of them legally seeking asylum. It’s a story that unfortunately has fallen to the backs of our minds, however the atrocities at the border and what we are doing to these people continue and will have after effects that we will be dealing with for generations. The children of the children, of the children of these victums will feel the emotional trauma we have inflicted on them, as well as the economic effects of our racism, and xenophobia.

Diane Guerrero, an actress who had her break on Orange Is The New Black, bravely told the story how her parents were deported when she was a child in her book, In the Country We Love. It’s a book that tells the story of the consequences of our immigration policies and brings voice and humanity to people that so many try to humanize and silence. It’s an essential read, and Guerrero’s bravery in telling her story and her continues advocacy is a moral voice, that we so desperately need in our country.



Guerrero’s character in Orange In The New Black faced the same challenges and trauma that the possibility of deportation that her parents and her brother faced in real life. With incredible acting, Guerrero brought humanity to this role and adding the important emotional connection to these victims. 

Diane Guerrero has forever changed that way I see America. There are crimes in our present which like the sins of our past complicate, and challenge assertions of patriotism and American pride.  I see now that trump and his administration's actions against people who are undocumented and those at the border are evil.  And greatness in America has never been in guys like trump who are willing to rip babies away from mothers and allows kids to die in custody to maintain power.

American greatness is in people like Diane Guerrero who in the face of evil, speak loudly, and fight for what is right.