• SOMETHINGSWRONG@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 months ago

    I have some reservations (need to research her more) as she was relatively progressive in an American context it seems.

    If anyone has more starting points for my research, I am absolutely open.

    However, for the moment she’s a “NO” from me. Even at the most forgiving judgements, it seems she sent away a whole bunch of poor people and did nothing about the system that is driving them to crime.

    Ah also her weird racism, nepotism, and stances on LGBT issues. Who refers to art in their home by the ethnicity of the artist???

    • return2ozma@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 months ago

      Another one for you. As a Californian, we knew she was bad. That’s why she dropped out polling 5th in the primary.

      The Human Costs Of Kamala Harris’ War On Truancy. The “progressive prosecutor” wanted to transform how California responded to students missing school. Parents like Cheree Peoples wound up paying the price.

      https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-truancy-arrests-2020-progressive-prosecutor_n_5c995789e4b0f7bfa1b57d2e

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Good info on her background, thank you! As a former Orange resident this is especially disappointing to read this story and how the mother and child were treated.

        Harris has since replaced her punitive stance with the message that parents of truant children need help, not scare tactics. It’s a shift that happened roughly in step with voters’ waning tolerance for using the criminal justice system to address complicated social problems and Harris’ own preparations to seek higher office.

        Emphasis mine

        She’s a cop, down to her core. She’s got the mentality that “I can fix social problems through the threat and use of coercive state violence”. That was her law, that she asked for, I assumed drafted/guided, and defended publicly… until she ran for the Oval Office, and was made to choose compassion.

      • zbyte64@awful.systems
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        5 months ago

        It was wild to see how fast the hype around her candidacy deflated. Admittedly, I got wrapped up in it up until I heard her talk for the second time.

    • Lemmeenym@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      She did something about the system. She defended it. On two occasions she opposed the release of people who had convictions overturned by demonstrating actual innocence to appellate courts on the basis of legal technicalities, in both cases her office argued that they had waited too long to file a petition to be released. Her office argued against the release of inmates eligible for parole after a federal court ruled that the extreme overcrowding in California prisons was cruel and unusual on the basis that releasing the prisoners would reduce prison labor.

      She helped with a cover up of an employee at the state crime lab who falsified testing results. The truth came out after the employee was arrested for stealing drugs from the lab and hundreds of convictions were overturned. She defended a police detective that falsified a confession to coerce a defendant into accepting a plea deal. She opposed requiring police to use body worn cameras. She opposed legislation that would have required her office to review police shootings.

      She consistently declined to investigate allegations of police and prosecutor misconduct including police shootings of unarmed people. Eventually she had to for the police, it got to the point that the justice department eventually stepped in to investigate an incident where a group of officers surrounded a mentally ill man with a steak knife and shot him 21 times after Harris refused to review the case. While she cooperated with the federal investigation into the police shooting, she backed the prosecutor who had his entire office removed from a case because of proven misconduct including hiding exonerating evidence.

    • Xerø@infosec.pub
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      5 months ago

      Racism really? You mean being positive about being black? I only ever see bigots referring to black folk as racist.

        • Xerø@infosec.pub
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          5 months ago

          No, any human being is capable of bias. Racism requires institutional power.

          • SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Agreed any human is capable of bias. Bias based on perceived differences. Some people make biased assumptions based on their perceiving of race.