As Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, a bevy of her relations cheered her on from the stands: her husband, Doug Emhoff, stepchildren and her sister, Maya Harris, to call a couple of.
However the nominee’s father, Donald J. Harris, didn’t seem on the Democratic Nationwide Conference corridor in Chicago. He’s Kamala’s solely dwelling mother or father, as her mom, Shyamala Gopalan died in 2009.
This is what to know in regards to the vice chairman’s father and his involvement (or lack thereof) in her political profession.
Who’s Donald J. Harris?
Donald Harris is an economist and retired Stanford College professor. Born in Jamaica, he immigrated to america to finish a doctorate diploma on the College of California in Berkeley. There, he additionally met Shyamala, and the couple had two youngsters, Kamala and Maya, earlier than divorcing.
After his divorce, Shyamala gained major custody of their youngsters, although Donald continued to see Kamala and Maya in the course of the weekends and summer season, in response to the vice chairman’s 2019 memoir.
“Had they been a little bit older, a little bit extra emotionally mature, possibly the wedding may have survived. However they have been so younger,” Kamala wrote in “The Truths We Maintain.”
Donald Harris, whose financial philosophies are sometimes grounded in Marxist principle, has additionally served as a frequent financial advisor to his house nation of Jamaica, in response to The Washington Submit.
Is Donald J. Harris on the DNC? Is he concerned in Kamala’s marketing campaign?
Donald Harris was absent from the DNC in Chicago, together with when Harris formally accepted the presidential nomination.
In reality, the economist has chosen to remain largely absent from his daughter’s political life. He additionally didn’t make any public remarks or appearances throughout her 2020 vice presidential marketing campaign.
It seems the final time Donald Harris weighed in on the vice chairman’s political profession was in 2019, when she was within the midst of her first presidential bid.
His remark got here after Harris responded to a radio interview query about whether or not she had smoked marijuana earlier in her life by saying, “Half my household’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?”
Donald then responded in an announcement to Jamaica International On-line, a information website in his house nation, in response to POLITICO.
“My pricey departed grandmothers… in addition to my deceased mother and father, should be turning of their grave proper now to see their household’s title, status and proud Jamaican identification being linked, in any method, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking pleasure seeker and within the pursuit of identification politics,” Donald wrote.
“Talking for myself and my rapid Jamaican household, we want to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” he added.
Kamala’s marketing campaign didn’t situation any remark in response.
What’s Donald J. Harris’s connection to Wisconsin?
Although he ended his college profession at Stanford, Donald additionally taught for a number of years on the College of Wisconsin-Madison.
The household lived in Madison from the time Kamala was 3 to five years outdated. Donald was an affiliate professor of economics at UW-Madison, whereas Shyamala labored as a breast most cancers researcher within the McArdle Laboratory for Most cancers Analysis.
In her memoir, Harris cited the household’s transfer to Madison as the explanation for her mother and father’ separation.
Hope Karnopp contributed to this story.
