IT'S A FEMININOMENON
LISTENING: sorry, but I can't stop listening to Chappell!!!
FEELING: hopeful for the first time in a long time
SEEING: an endless stream of coconut tree memes 🌴
I haven't felt this excited about our political sphere in a very, very long time. I am actually surprised by this feeling bubbling inside me.
Hope, is that you? It's been a while, boo.
What's especially surprising is the source of my hope and optimism: the potential for a President Kamala Harris. I must admit that when Harris announced her bid for president back in 2019, I was not inspired. If you've followed my work over the 10 years I've covered climate and environmental justice, you'll know that a chunk of my reporting has focused on California. Harris's legacy in the state is fraught with controversy, especially when it comes to incarceration.
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I've reported on the state's incarcerated wildland firefighter program, in particular, so I was concerned when President Joe Biden announced Harris as his vice president choice. I wrote about those concerns four years ago. The Biden-Harris White House has invested hundreds of millions to expand the U.S. prison-industrial complex and doubled down on restricting the border, so my concerns weren't entirely far-fetched.
However, I'm past all that. I'm looking to a future where my nieces can be proud to have their first woman president — a future where they can see that a woman doesn't have to be white to do the job, either. Yes, Kamala is a cop! Yes, she, too, is complicit in the Israeli military's assault on Palestine. She is by no means the ideal candidate for a climate-just world (though does such a candidate exist?). You know what she is? She's better than Donald Trump!!! And I believe she is willing to listen to the American people who want more than prisons and jails and climate-fueled wildfires being fought by people who don't even have their basic freedoms.
Welcome to Possibilities, a creative climate newsletter on the possibilities that lie where crisis meets community. I’m Yessenia Funes, and baby, "kamala IS brat!"
Criminal justice activists are wishful that Harris will embrace more progressive policies when it comes to incarceration and prisons.