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| Source: https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/the-truths-we-hold-coming-out-on-january-8-discusses-the-defining-moments-in-my-/10157364898867923/ |
I completed this read about three months back. It was a book I purchased more than a year ago but did not have any sense of discipline to open and read. I remembered it again at the height of the US elections campaigning . I remember loads of commentaries brutally pick apart the two candidates and what they stand for, their inconsistencies, with hosts and commentators committing outright mockeries of each, thinking how an honest introspection like that could never happen here due to cultural differences. It's just... not our way. (To be honest, I had not even followed Malaysian elections that closely!)
This years' elections had me on the edge of my seat. One reason why could have been due to the fact that the policies have a major ripple effect onto the international platform. It was especially important at a time and age where we have the Israel-Palestine war (two-state approach) (and US being for some reason, a country powerful enough to intervene and mediate or stop it for good), who would take a tough stance against China to prevent threats of possible espionage and/or who would be the target of economic sanctions, the strength of cryptocurrency, climate change concerns, who would manage the inflation bubble, the fact that housing was becoming increasingly unaffordable, immigration, policies to help the struggling middle class, electric vehicles, religion, abortion rights, unemployment rates, .. It was like watching the world about to undergo a big change in real time. It was two real polar opposite interests being advanced, with almost no overlaps.
As an outsider, it really did look like a choice between one fraction who would run the country as if it were a giant business, versus one who would run the country to meet humanitarian, social, familial, middle class needs. One thing was clear, the latter was becoming increasingly unpopular due to the host of problems it spilled onto frustrated taxpayers. As the resounding quote from the recently watched movie Wicked goes:-
"“The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”
And just while it's not completely off topic yet , let me share some insightful links :-
VOX: The debate over why Harris lost is in full swing. Here’s a guide.
(https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/383897/harris-lost-debate-why-trump-won)
BBC: Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or a doomed campaign?(https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4l5j2v9do)
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So, anywayy, back to the book I read, The Truths we Hold -- I ended up really loving this auto-biography. It was honest, relatable, and provided valuable insight into the stances and policies she adopted. Something within me wanted to see *cough* an indian woman *cough* lead USA.
Here are some impactful takeaways from the book. It's done to inspire you to get the actual book and read the whole story :-
Preface:
1. We cannot solve our most intractable problems unless we are honest about what they are, unless we are willing to have difficult conversations and accept what facts make plain.
Chapter 1 : For the People
This chapter talks about the nudge which led to her running for president. It depicts her growing up middle class, and her mother throwing back the question to her, what did you do ? It speaks of her bad first experience as a prosecutor, and the empowerment she felt from stopping /curbing the cycle of foster care -> juvenile detention -> adult criminal system.
Memorable quotes:
- It was a defining moment in my life. It was the crystalisation of how, even on the margins of the criminal justice system, the stakes were extraordinary high and intensely human. It was a realisation that, even with the limited authority and intern, people who cared could do justice. It was revelatory, a moment that provided how much it mattered to have compassionate people working as prosecutors.
- My mother was expected to return to India after she completed her degree. Her parents had an arranged marriage. It was assumed my mother to follow a similar path. But fate had other plans. She and my father met and fell in love at Berkeley while participating in the civil rights movement. Her marriage -- and her decision to stay in the United States-- where the ultimate acts of self-determination and love.
- It was a community that was invested in its children, a place where people believed in the most basic tenet of the American Dream: that if you work hard and do right by the world, your kids will be better off than you were. We weren't rich in financial terms, but the values we internalised provided a different kind of wealth.
- I didn't walk away thinking I was a failure. I walked away thinking I had done a great job, and just made one small mistake. It was moments like those that helped me build a natural sense of confidence. I believed I was capable of anything.
- For too long, we'd been told that there were only two options: to either be tough on crime - an oversimplification that ignored the realities of public safety. You can want the police to stop crime in your neighbourhood and also want them to stop using excessive force. You can want them to hunt down a killer on your streets and also want them to stop using racial profiling. You can believe in the need for consequence and accountability , especially for serious criminals, and also oppose unjust incarceration. I believed it was essential to weave all these varied strands together.
- But as it turns out, neither law school nor the bar exam really teach you what to do in court, and in those early days, it can feel like you've landed on another planet where everyone speaks the language but you.
- "For the people" was my compass- and there was nothing I took more seriously than the power I now possessed. ...I was just starting out as a prosecutor, and yet I had the power to deprive a person of their liberty with the swipe of my pen.
- There is a giant chasm between arrest and conviction, and if you want to get from one to the other, you need legally obtained evidence.
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Chapter 2: A voice for justice
This chapter detailed her experience as a public prosecutor, recognising the systemic issues about the justice system and trying to revamp it from the grassroot problems.
Memorable quote:
- In the 1940s, the prospect of good jobs and affordable housing around the shipyard lured thousands of black Americans who were seeking opportunity and relief from the pain and injustice of segregation. These workers bent the steel and welded the plates that helped our nation win the Second World War.
- I wasn't running so I could have a fancy office downtown . I was running for the chance to represent people whose voices weren't being heard, and to bring the promise of public safety to every neighbourhood, not just some.
- Still , this process didn't come naturally to me. I was always more than happy to talk about the work to be done. But voters wanted to hear about more than just policy. They wanted to know about me personally- who I was, what my life had been like, the experiences that shaped me. They wanted to understand what I was on a fundamental level. But I'd been raised not to talk about myself. I'd been raised with the belief that there was something narcissistic about doing so. Something in vain. And so, even though I understood what was motivating their questions, it took some time before I got used to it.
- Modern campaigns rely on big data, analytics and sophisticated voter turnout models. But in my experience, I've found that a friend, a pen, and a bowl of spaghetti are just as effective.
- When it comes to the things that matter most, we have so much more in common than what seperates us.
- I had run because I knew I could do the job-- and I believed I could do it better than it had been done. Still, I knew I represented something much bigger than my experience. At the time, there weren't many district attorneys who looked like me or had my background. There still aren't.
- For me, to be a progressive prosecutor is to understand...that fairness is in short supply in a justice system that is supposed to guarantee it.
- As a country, we specialise in releasing inmates into desperate, hopeless situations. We give them a little bit of money and a bus ticket and we send them on their way with a felony conviction on their record-not the kind of experience most employers are looking for. In so many cases, finding themselves rejected in the hiring process, they have no way of making money. From the moment they leave, they are in danger of returning.
- By its very design, the cash bail system favours the wealthy and penalises the poor. If you can pay cash up front, you can leave, and when your trial is over, you'll get all of your money back. If you can't afford it, you either languish in jail or have to pay a bail bondsman, which costs a steep fee you will never get back.
- Public safety depends on public trust. It depends on people believing they will be treated fairly and transparently. It depends on a justice system that is steeped in the notions of objectivity and impartiality. It depends on the basic decency our Constitution demands.
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Chapter 3: Underwater
This chapter details the rising costs of living and her being in a place where she could do something to save the middle class from drowning in their financial crisis, specifically the housing market crash.
Memorable quotes:
- Few realised that they were actually purchasing ticking time bombs.
- Foreclosure is not a statistic. Foreclosure is a husband suffering in silence, knowing he's in trouble but too ashamed to tell his partner that he has failed. Foreclosure is a mother on the phone with her bank, pleading for more time-just until the school year is over. Foreclosure is a sheriff knocking at your door and ordering you out of your home. It is a grandmother on the sidewalk in tears, watching her life's posessions being removed from her house by strangers and left exposed on the yard. It is learning from a neighbour that your house was just auctioned off on the steps of the City Hall. It is the changing of locks, the immolation of dreams. It is a child learning for the first time that parents can be terrified, too.
- From the banks' point of view, the faster they got bad loans off their balance sheet, the faster their stock price would rebound. And if that meant breaking the law, so be it. The could afford the fine. It was painful to me when I realised that the bank viewed the fine as just the costs of doing business. It became clear to me that they had built it into their bottom line. It was a damning portrait of an aspect of Wall Street culture that persists , the part that seems to care little, if at all, about the collateral damage caused by recklessness and greed.
- For the vast majority of families, buying a home is the biggest financial transaction they will ever be involved in. It's one of the most affirming moments in a person's adult life., a testament to all your hard work. You trust the people involved in the process. When the banker tells you that you qualify for a loan, you trust that she's reviewed the numbers and won't let you take on more than you can handle. When the offer is accepted, the broker is so happy for you,you'd think he's going to move into the house with you. And when it comes time you finish the paperwork, it's basically a signing ceremony. You might as well be popping champagne. Your broker is there. Your banker is there, and you believe they have your best interests at heart. When they put a stack of paper in front of you, you trust them, and you sign. And sign. And sign. And sign.
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Chapter 4: Wedding Bells
Source: https://depositphotos.com/similar-images/106450052.html?qview=106450028
File ID: 106450052 By: hinhanni
This chapter tells the story of how she met her now husband. And what a great complement he was (instead of diming her light). It also touches on her stance on LGBT's right to marriage.
Memorable quotes:
- We were following in the footsteps of giants, and widening the trail for our time.
- The first dot concerned the importance of third-grade reading proficiency. Studies show that the end of third grade is a critical milestone for students. Up until that point, the curriculum focuses on teaching students to learn to read. In fourth grade, there's a shift, and students transition to reading in order to learn. If students can't read, they can't learn, and they fall further behind, month after month and year after year-which forces them onto a nearly inescapable path to poverty.
- The connections were so clear. You could map the path for children who started drifting away from the classroom when they were young. The truant child became the wanderer... who became the target for gang recruiters... who became the young drug courier... who became the perpetrator-- or the victim-- of violence.
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Chapter 5: I say we fight
This chapter details the journey to run as senator. To those outside of America, it's a state representative. Each state in the US elects two senators who serve six year terms in Washington DC.
Memorable Quotes:
(I didn't highlight any paragraphs from this chapter)
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Chapter 6: We are better than this
This chapter details what happened when Kamala was elected as senator.
Memorable Quotes:
1. I talked about the outsize impact on the state of California, because I believe California is a microcosm of who we are as Americans.
Chapter 7: Every Body
This chapter deals with Kamala's views and stance on healthcare, and on the side, tells the story of her mothers' death, a person who helped shape most of her fundamentals. This chapter does a great job at explaining the bridge between poverty/race and mortality.
Memorable Quotes:
- Nearly all of us will face a prognosis that requires profound interaction with the healthcare system.
- A 2016 study found a ten-year gap in life expectancy in America between the most affluent women and the poorest . That means that being poor reduces your life expectancy more than a lifetime of smoking cigarettes.
- But think about that for a minute. This is the world we could return to if they abolish the ACA: women denied healthcare coverage for perpetuating the species. Let's remember the words of Mark Twain: "What sir, would the people of the earth be without women? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce."
- It should have come as no surprise that over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have spent about $2.5 billion on lobbying. Imagine the new drug trials they could have funded instead.
- Between October 2013 and April 2014, the company increased the price of Pravastatin, a statin that helps reduce cholesterol and prevent heart disease, by 573 percent.
- It's heartless and wrong for companies to make a fortune by exploiting the fact that their customers literally cannot live without their products.
- 7. Black women are also at least three times as likely to die due to complications relating to pregnancy than white women- a shocking gulf that transcends socio-economic status.
- And because black Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to be born and raised in low income, high crime neighbourhoods, they are more likely to experience a phenomenon known as toxic stress, the result of trauma caused by things ranging from witnessing violence to experiencing it.
- One study found that children who go through at least six adverse childhood experiences could see their life expectancy reduced by more than twenty years. Physiological stress leads to hypertension, which results in higher rates of infant and maternal mortality, among other conditions. Research has even found that certain levels of stress shorten our telomeres, which are structures that hold our chromosomes together. As we age, our telomeres naturally get shorter until cells start dying, which leads to disease. A study at the University of Michigan measured the telomere length in hundreds of women and found that black women were biologically more than seven years older than white women their age.
- It's also the case that black Americans experience poorer care when they go to the doctor. White patients are 10 percent more likely to get screened for high cholesterol than black Americans, even though their rates of heart disease and stroke are higher among black Americans. Black patients are also less likely to be trated using procedures to repair blocked arteries. White women are more likely to get breast cancer screenings than black women and Latinas. And women of colour are more likely to have their symptoms dismissed by their doctor, regardless of their economic status.
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Chapter 8 : The Cost of Living
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| Source: https://depositphotos.com/photos/cost-of-living.html?qview=577973632 |
This chapter goes into the income imbalances across America, in view of the ever rising costs of living which was highlighted to her through the letters from people within her constituency. It deals with income polarisation, how today's financial policies are 'hollowing out the middle class'.
Memorable Quotes:
- The nation's clearest voices and strongest leaders in the fight for economic justice had been suddenly, irrevocably, silenced...I remind people that when you adjust for inflation, the federal minimum wage is actually lower now than when Dr. King spoke of 'starvation wages' in 1968. What does that say about how our country values the sanctity and dignity of work?
- For me, reading these letters isn't just about understanding what their lives are like, both the joys and the fears. When people write to me, it is often as a last resort. They are struggling, and in real trouble, but nothing else they've tried has worked. And so they turn to me and share with me the things that have upended their lives.
- How can you dream when your pay barely budges no matter how hard you work, while everything else keeps getting so much more expensive? How can you dream when your son is sick but you can't afford your copay or deductible? A middle-class life isn't what it used to be. Being middle-class ought to mean having financial security and stability. But how is that possible when the cost of living is so high that you live one setback away from catastrophe? An injury. An illness. Nobody expects life to be easy, but it's not supposed to be a life-altering crisis when your car's transmission fails.
- Every letter stands on its own. But, together, they tell the same story. It is the story of Americans trapped in a cost-of-living crisis, where everything from housing and health care to child care and education is way more expensive than it used to be while wages remain as low as they have been for decades. The letters I receive consistently tell the story of the hollowing out of the middle class, and of an economic life defined by intense struggle.
- From the big business's perspective, it was those who owned a piece of the company who deserved the lion's share of the riches, not the people who made the company run. So while productivity improved 74 percent between 1973 and 2013, worker compensation rose just 9 percent.
- What's the result of all this? It's been great for the richest 1 percent of American households, who now own 40 percent of the nation's wealth, which adds up to roughly $40 trillion. But it's been a financial nightmare for the middle class. According to research done by United Way, 43 percent of households can't afford basic expenses: a roof over their head, food on the table, child care, health care, transportation, and a cell phone.
- We are running out of time. That's the hard truth . And not just in terms of dealing with what is so urgent right now. We are running out of time to deal with major changes to come. With the rise of artificial intelligence, we are likely to face an automation crisis in this country with millions of jobs on the line. Industries are changing. Self-driving trucks couod cost 3.5 million truck drivers their jobs. The entire tax preparation business could disappear, too. The McKinsey Global Institute found that as many as 375 million people worldwide will need to switch jobs because of automation and predicts that 23 percent of current working hours could become automated by 2030.
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Chapter 9 : Smart on Security
Source: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/medium-shot-security-officer-posing-studio_39916156.htm
As the name suggests, this chapter details Kamala's stance on security. In her pursuit of being more in touch with the issues surrounding security, she joined the Senate Intelligence Community. It's top secret but in there people are not seperated by their political beliefs, they are all united to serve one purpose, to protect America from her enemies. It also explores the invisible thread linking climate crises to an influx of disease , threatening the safety of the average American.
Memorable quotes:
- The rigid partisanship that has paralyzed much of Washington somehow fades as we enter the room/ We are, all of us, keenly focused on the weight of the work we are undertaking and its consequences. There is simply no room for anything other than a focus on America's national security and the protection of anything other than a focus on America's national security and the protection of American's privacy and civil liberties.
- I sometimes refer to it as a war without blood: there are no soilders in the field, no bullets and bombs. But the reality is cyber warfare aims to weaponise infrastructure , and, at its worst, could result in casualties. Imagine, for example, a cyberattack on railroad switching signals or hospital generators or a nuclear power plant.
- Climate change can be seen from many angles. Some see it purely as an environmental issue. They point to the destruction of habitats, the melting of ice sheets, and a comong mass extinction of species. Others see it as a public health issue that demands a world where clean air and clean water are readily available. There is also the economic dimension of climate change: ask farmers about the complexity of their work, about their precise and measured focus on weather patterns, about the incredibly narrow margins that exist between a successful harvest and a ruinous one, and you will come to understand that extreme weather events and unpredictable shifts in the climate are nothing to dismiss.
- But when you speak to generals, when you speak to senior members of the intelligence community and experts on international conflicts, you will find that they look at climate change as a national security threat -- a "threat multiplier" that will exarcebate poverty and political instability, creating conditions that enable violence, despair, even terrorism. An unstable, erratic climate will beget an unstable, erratic world.
- Climate change also increases the risk of deadly global pandemics making their way to the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that between 2006 and 2016, the number of Americans infected by diseases like West Nile, Zika, and Lyme more than tripled. As temperatures continue to warm diseases are flourishing in parts of America where they wouldn't have been able to survive in the past.
- This isn't the stuff of science or of a dystopian novel set far in the future Climate-driven crisis is already on the rise. In late 2017, for example, water reserves fell so low in Cape Town, South Africa, that the city of more than three million people, South Africa's second largest, was at risk of having its taps run dry. Residents started showering over buckets so that they could reuse the water in their washing machines. Farmers had to abandon about a quarter of their crops.
- Of course, it isn't possible to reduce the complexity of leadership to simple slogans. But my team and I rely on these mantras as touchstones and guideposts -- as starting points for policy conversations and as ways to determine whether we're on the right track.
- It's the kind of topic I have to remind myself not to talk about too much at cocktail parties, since most people don't find it as interesting as I do. "Why the fascination? He explains that 40 percent of people on earth owe their lives to higher crop outputs that were made possible only because of fertilizer. It was the literal fuel for the Green Revolution, which helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. What Gates understand is that there is a big difference between announcing a plan to end world hunger and actually ending it/ And closing the gap depends on seemingly mundane details like fertilizer and weather patterns and the height of wheat.
- Politics is a realm where the grand pronouncement often takes the place of the painstaking and detail-oriented work of getting meaningful things done. This isn't to say that there's anything inherently wrong with grand pronouncements. Good leadership requires vision and aspiration. It requires the articulation of bold ideas that move people to action. But it is often the mastery of the seemingly unimportant details, the careful execution of the tedious tasks, and the dedicated work done outside of the public eye that make the changes we seek possible.
- My point is: You have to sweat the small stuff-because sometimes it turns out that the small stuff is actually the big stuff.
- Words have the ability to empower and to deceive, the power to soothe and to hurt. They can spread important ideas and wronghead ones. They can spur people to action, for good or ill. Words are incredibly powerful, and people in power, whose words can carry furthest and fastest, have an obligation -- a duty -- to speak them with precision and wisdom. Scripture tells us, "The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint , and whoever has understanding is even tempered.
- Second, I choose to speak truth. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it leaves people feeling uneasy. When you speak truth, people won't always walk away feeling good-and sometimes you won't feel so great about the reaction you receive. But at least all parties will walk away knowing it was an honest conversation. That is not to say that all truth is uncomfortable, or that the intention is to cause discomfort. Many truths are incredibly hopeful. I am simply saying that the job of an elected official is not to sing a lullaby and soothe the country into a sense of complacency. The job is to speak truth, even in a moment that does not welcome or invite its utterance.
- I've seen a lot in my years of public service. And what I've learned can't all be boiled down. But I've come away with the firm belief that people are fundamentally good. And that, given the chance, they will usually reach out a hand to help their neighbour. I've learned, through history and experience, that not all progress is gradual or linear. Sometimes, it simply goes from one plateau to another. Sometimes, we fall back tragically. Sometimes, we leap forward and achieve things beyond the realm of what we thought possible. I believe our job is to provide the force propulsion that will get us to a higher plane.