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• Woodland Cemetery restoration- 2 • Church farm helps stock pantries- 3 • About the future of Social Security- 4 Right: “We’re going to get this under control,” Marvin Harris said of conditions at Henrico County’s Woodland Cemetery.
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • Aug. 19, 2020
INSIDE
Vol. 6 No. 33
LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE
A familiar refrain as Kamala Harris faces attacks directed at gender identity SUSAN MILLIGAN Geraldine Ferraro was basking in her ground-breaking political promotion in 1984, venturing out on her first campaign trip since thenDemocratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale announced her as his running mate. She was in Mississippi, meeting with farmers and discussing what the state produced – catfish, crayfish, grapes, blueberries. Ferraro said she grew blueberries, too. “Can you bake a blueberry muffin?” Jim Buck Ross, then the state’s agriculture commissioner, asked the then-48-year-old Ferraro, whom he had called “young lady.” Ferraro said she could, then countered, “Can you?” Ross offered an answer that would presage the sort of gender bias she would continue to experience in the campaign. “Down here in Mississippi, the men don’t cook,” Ross said, before going on to brag about how Mississippi had produced three Miss Americas. It’s been 36 years since Ferraro, then a congresswoman from New York, forced Americans to consider the possibility of having a woman stand one heartbeat away from the presidency. A lot of progress has been made since then for women seeking elected office. EMILY’s List, a group dedicated to electing Democratic, pro-abortion rights
candidates, was founded the following year. Americans went on to elect record numbers of women to office, and a woman in 2007 became the first female speaker of the House. In 2008, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became the first woman to be on a GOP presidential ticket, and eight years later Hillary Clinton became the first major party presidential nominee. But Sen. Kamala Harris of California is finding she is still the target of sexist – as well as racist – attacks as the presumptive Democratic nominee seeks to become the first woman, first Black person and first Indian American to serve as vice president. And while the tropes and snide remarks about Harris aren't as direct as the but-can-she-cook sexism Ferraro experienced, Harris is being hit with a slew of attacks directed not at her qualifications or skills, but at her personality and identity. President Donald Trump immediately deemed her “nasty” after Joe Biden on Aug. 8 announced that Harris would be his pick for vice president, a name Trump has frequently used to criticize women who criticize him. Two days later, Trump followed up with more insults characterizing Harris as not sufficiently nice or compliant – common complaints women
Senator Kamala Harris greets supporters after speaking at a town hall at the Eastern State Penitentiary on Oct. 28, 2019 in Philadelphia. PHOTO: MARK MAKELA/GETTY IMAGES experience as they seek power in the corporate and political worlds. Harris is a “madwoman,” Trump told a Fox interviewer, as well as “condescending” and “angry.” While many Democrats were tough on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, during the jurist’s confirmation hearings, “she was the angriest of the group,” he said. Trump appeared to give credence to a theory among right-wing activists that Harris – the daughter of immigrants who were not citizens at the time of her birth – is not a
“natural born citizen” eligible to be vice president. “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements. … I have no idea if that’s right,” Trump told reporters after being asked about the theory. “And, by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very qualified, very talented lawyer,” Trump said, referring to a Newsweek column questioning whether Harris, who was born in California, meets the constitutional requirements to be
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