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Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology. She has written for the New York Times and has two books forthcoming with Penguin Random House.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, she began writing at only a few years of age. Now her words have won her invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others.

Amanda has performed multiple commissioned poems for CBS This Morning and she has spoken at events and venues across the country, including the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She has written for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and penned the manifesto for Nike’s 2020 Black History Month campaign.

She is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, and is the youngest board member of 826 National, the largest youth writing network in the United States. In 2017 UrbanWord and the Library of Congress named her the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States.

On Wednesday, Gorman became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, performing an original poem titled “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. She continues a tradition that has included such celebrated poets as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.

In the roughly five-minute reading of her poem, Gorman called for healing and unity, alluding to the pro-Trump rally two weeks ago that turned into a violent storming of the U.S. Capitol.

“We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it / Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy / And this effort very nearly succeeded / But while democracy can be periodically delayed / It can never be permanently defeated,” she read.

She celebrated the beauty of the country’s diversity and called on Americans to rise to the occasion and leave their country better than they found it.

“We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother / Can dream of becoming president, only to be reciting for one,” she said.

Joe Biden, the President-elect of the United States of America, has appointed Nigerian-born Funmi Olorunnipa Badejo into his cabinet.

The President-elect made announcement when he named additional 20 members of the office of the White House counsel.

Badejo is a lawyer and an alumna of Berkeley Law College in the US, and served as ethics counsel in the same office toward the end of the President Barrack Obama administration.

She, alongside other lawyers of the Office of White House Counsel will be advising the President, the executive office of the president, and the White House staff on legal issues pertaining to the president and the White House.

A statement on the Biden-Harris transition website said that Badejo was general counsel of the house select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis which was chaired by James Clyburn, House Majority Whip.

“Her prior government service includes serving as Counsel for policy to the Assistant Attorney-General in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Ethics Counsel at the White House Counsel’s Office and Attorney Advisor at the Administrative Conference of the United States during the Obama-Biden administration,” the statement read.

Biden will become the 46th President of the United States after his swearing-in slated for January 20, 2021

He defeated the incumbent President Donald Trump in the November 3 presidential election after scoring over 300 electoral college votes

Although Trump rejected the election result claiming electoral fraud, he could not provide proofs and has lost numerous cases he filed in court.

President Trump was however, impeached on Wednesday for the second time having been accused of inciting his supporters to launch a deadly attack on US Capitol In a final push to stop the confirmation of Biden as the winner of the election by the Congress.

Biden had earlier In December 2020 appointed a Nigerian-American, Osaremen Okolo, a Ni, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 response team.

Before then, Nigerian-born Adewale Adeyemo has been appointed as deputy secretary of the treasury department.

It took me a long time to get over the electoral loss of Hillary Clinton in 2016. When there are candidates or electoral races I am interested in, I can be an election junkie. In November 2008, I was so invested in Barack Obama’s election that I hosted an election night vigil with some friends at my house in Accra where I was still based at the time. When the election was declared for Barak, our screams could be heard in the whole neighbourhood. For Barack Obama’s reelection, I was invited by the US Embassy in Nigeria, to be part of an election night vigil on November 5th 2012 they organized in Lagos.  It was a long night of speeches, (I was asked to talk about the role of women in politics and elections) and election monitoring, interspersed with entertainment.

I wrote an essay called, ‘Thank You Hillary’ shortly after the November 2016 election and it is in my book Loud Whispers. I reflected on her loss as follows, ‘In my own opinion, Hillary Clinton lost the election due to several factors – the resurgence of white nationalists, the disaffection of blue collar voters, sexism, the backlash against the Washington political elite, the millennials who underperformed, the reduced African-American vote, the FBI back and forth over her emails, the endless WikiLeaks, and complacency on the part of Democrats/the Clinton Campaign, who felt that they had some States firmly locked up and so did not need to campaign there. Perhaps one of the most painful factors that led to Hillary’s loss, was that 53% of white women who voted, cast their lot with Donald Trump. So after all the years of advocating for women to lead,  of fighting for the empowerment of women, when they had the opportunity, white women in the US decided to use the power of their numbers to send a man with a controversial record with women to the White House. That hurts’.  In subsequent years, information emerged about possible sabotage of the elections by the Russians. With or without their interference, the factors above were more than enough to cost Hillary the election. In the months that followed Hillary’s loss, the Democratic Party almost imploded. Then sometime in early 2017, I read an article about one woman who might be able to pull off a Democratic nomination and unify the party in 2020. It was Senator Kamala Harris. I was very excited when she joined the Presidential race in 2019, but she pulled out due to a lack of funding and traction. I thought to myself, her time will come.

Fast forward. On August 11th 2020, Senator Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee announced his choice of a running mate. As of February 2020, Senator Bernie Saunders, representing the left of the Democratic Party with a message of revolution that resonates with the younger members and more leftist Democrats, who were mostly opposed to Hillary in 2016 and did not show up for her the way they would have had the nominee been Bernie, was coasting towards clinching the Democratic nomination. Other Democratic contenders such as Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard and the billionaire maverick Michael Bloomberg were not serious threats to Bernie Saunders. By this time Joe Biden was limping and it seemed as if his campaign was in its dying throes.

Then on Saturday February 28th, the South Carolina Democratic primaries took place. Joe Biden won with a landslide and his campaign was resurrected from the dead. By ‘Super Tuesday’ on March 4th, Joe Biden had secured a significant lead and was unstoppable after that. Joe Biden won South Carolina with the votes of African-Americans, the most reliable voting bloc of the Democratic Party. Joe Biden knew that the forces at play within his own party, with a record number of female Presidential candidates, as well as tensions around the country on the topic of inclusion and exclusion in America of today, meant that he no longer had the luxury of business as usual.  A ticket of two white men was not going to be an attractive draw for the increasingly diverse Democratic base. He therefore pledged, straight up, that he would take on a female running mate. Initially, it was assumed that someone like Elizabeth Warren, who appealed to a large segment of the Democratic left, and would be an acceptable consolation for the Bernie followers, would neatly fit this role to form a solid ticket against President Trump in November. Then George Lloyd was killed by policemen on May 25th, sparking outrage and massive riots within and outside the US. The Black Lives Matter movement was re-energized, and this time it got sympathy from mainstream audiences. Images of black mothers, sisters and Aunts mourning their dead sons over and over, from one senseless killing to the other kept playing on national television. The issue of Race was now front and center. Joe Biden came under pressure to pick an African-American woman as a running mate. Just as it is here in Nigeria, women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and African-American women have more than paid their dues.

On August 11th 2020, Joe Biden announced Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Senator Harris comes with outstanding credentials and experience. The fact that she put herself out there to run for the Presidential nomination of her party was a plus in her favour, it means she is ready for the job. She also has a reputation for fearlessness, and is not intimidated by white male authority figures. She embarrassed Joe Biden at one of their debates by showing him the implications of one of his policies, she made Justice Brett Kavanaugh look like a school boy at his Senate hearing for clearance as a Supreme Court Judge and she grilled Attorney-General William Barr at a Senate Judiciary hearing into the Mueller Report till he squirmed figuratively. Kamala Harris ticks an impressive number of boxes, something that is absolutely necessary in today’s complex America. She is African-American and South-Asian American at the same time, born to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She grew up knowing what it meant to have ‘other’ identities in the US. She is also married to a white man, which takes care of a major constituency. She is a good orator, has great presence and is quite attractive with a megawatt smile, all important to the many critical voting blocs she will have to appeal to.

Already, the vultures have started to gather to pick at her. From within her own party, there are rumblings from those who believe she is too centrist to stand for much of anything and would therefore not appeal to the leftist hardliners. There are also questions about ‘how truly black she is’. On the other side, characterizations of her as a ‘Nasty’ and ‘Mad’ woman, led by President Trump himself, are being put out there. All this is no surprise, it is politics. Yesterday, I listened to Anderson Cooper interviewing Valerie Jarret on CNN. Valerie was one of Barrack Obama’s ‘Political Godmothers’, (yes, they have those in the US!), she also served as his Special Adviser throughout his two terms in office. Valerie said something to the effect that black women in the United States have been waiting for this moment. They know the knives will be out for Kamala Harris, and the political bullies will stop at nothing to bring her down. Valerie then proceeded to put everyone on notice. Black women leaders who have Kamala’s back will push back. For every take down of Kamala five will respond. It is hoped that the solidarity of white women can be counted on this time, it was taken for granted last time with disastrous results. The November election is for the Democrats to lose. They need to close ranks and stop the squabbling and whining. A lot is riding on the candidacy of Biden/Harris. Aside from hoping for a victory in November 2020, should Biden decide not to contest again in 2024, Kamala Harris has a direct shot at the White House with the strongest credentials possible. Can you imagine? A woman in the White House at last? And a black woman for that matter? Go Kamala, Go!!!!

 

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Social Entrepreneur and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She is the First Lady of Ekiti State, and she can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com

 

 

Started from the bottom, now we’re here!

Kamala Harris, the California senator who ended her bid for president earlier this year, has been selected by former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to be his running mate. 

This historic nomination makes Harris the first Black and South Asian woman nominated for vice president by a major political party. 

“You make a lot of important decisions as president. But the first one is who you select to be your Vice President,” Biden wrote to supporters Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021.”

Born in Oakland and a child of immigrants, Harris, a Howard University graduate and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority Incorporated, is no stranger to being the first. In 2015, when she ran for the senate an Economist article highlighted her multi-ethnic background and rise to success billing her as the only contender in the race,  “daughter of an Indian cancer researcher and a Jamaican economics professor, she is the first woman, first African-American and first Asian attorney general of California.”

Harris has credited both her mother for immersing her in both her cultures and preparing them for the world, “My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters,” she wrote in her autobiography The Truths We Hold. “She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”

After graduating from Howard, Harris went on to obtain a law degree from the University of California, Hasting, then began a career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. After becoming San Francisco’s district attorney in 2003, she served two terms as California’s attorney general becoming a trailblazer in the democratic party before a junior US senator in 2017. She gained nationwide popularity for her sharp question of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General Willam Barr in pivotal Senate hearings. 

Her presidential campaign, “For The People,” was met with initial enthusiasm, but as sentiment lagged she ended her candidacy in December prior to the Iowa primaries in 2020. 

Harris endorsed Biden in March saying that she would do “everything in my power to help elect him the next President of the United States.”