August 25, 2024

"It was a rare homage to her father, a prominent economist but fleeting figure in her life who has largely been a footnote in her personal and political story."

"The first Black scholar to receive tenure in Stanford University’s economics department, Dr. Harris remains a professor emeritus there, and turned 86 the day after his daughter gave the most important speech of her life at the Democratic National Convention. He was not among the family members who accompanied Ms. Harris to the convention.... Her relationship with her father is a closely guarded part of Ms. Harris’s life about which she has spoken only sparingly.... 'There is no title or honor on earth I’ll treasure more than to say I am Shyamala Gopalan Harris’ daughter,' Ms. Harris wrote in her book. 'That is the truth I hold dearest of all.'..."

Ms. Harris’s father has largely declined to weigh in on his daughter’s barrier-breaking political ascent in recent years, except in 2019 when he criticized a comment she made connecting her Jamaican roots to marijuana use. Since then, he has cited his aversion to seeking publicity....

From Professor Harris's 2019 essay:

“My dear departed grandmothers...as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” he wrote. “Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” he added.

Notable word in the professor's essay: joy. 

66 comments:

Paul Zrimsek said...

Shyamala Gopalan Harris

A fitting sire for Kamala Gosplan Harris.

Amadeus 48 said...

This campaign is apparently all about Democrats' daddy issues. This is their solution: Tim (Stolen Valor) Walz. Doug (Nanny Banger) Emhoff. Vasectomies and abortion pills brought to you by The Wieners' Circle (a hot dog stand on Clark Street).

MadTownGuy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadTownGuy said...

Deleted Autoincorrect before it finished my comment.

Not a sire, but a dam.

Howard said...

This election is all about people suffering from mental illness on both sides of the aisle. The detachment from reality is not surprising given how effectively the algorithm has penetrated people's souls.

Tom T. said...

In other words, Harris and her father are estranged and hostile, and reporters know that they'll get punished if they try to ask why.

Skeptical Voter said...

Professor Donald Harris is obviously a person of a lot fewer words than his daughter.

Ice Nine said...

Whoever was the editor who let KH's syntactically messy sentence about her mother into the book should have been fired.

OTOH, as a paradigm of her limited facility with the expression of her thoughts, perhaps that is exactly where it does belong.

rhhardin said...

What does this economist think about price controls and price gouging, is the question.

Dave Begley said...

Does the NYT mention that her dad is a Marxist?

David53 said...

Shy amala, K amala. I never noticed that before. I don't know much about culture, is it common to share the last part of a first name with one's parent?

planetgeo said...

If Walz has a neuro-divergent kid and thinks enough of him to introduce him to all of us at the DNC, why couldn't/wouldn't Kamala do the same with her politico-divergent father?

Sebastian said...

"prominent economist" How, prominent, exactly? As one of the few Marxists in a mainstream econ department? Perhaps. As a well-cited key contributor? Doubtful.

It is interesting, though, isn't it, that O had Frank Marshall and now Kamala has Donald--Dem (quasi-)offspring of actual Marxists.

David53 said...

Indian culture...

Jaq said...

'Algorithmically inflicted character disorders' is how I would put it.

Jersey Fled said...

Her father left when she was 7 years old and she has rarely (if ever) seen him since. Yet she took her father’s ethnicity when it became politically convenient. And it was her mother (East Asian) who taught her how to be a proud African American.

I get it.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Every thing that come out of the pens or the mouths of her spokespeople is utter bullshit, fantasy, or otherwise though to be politically advantageous.

Everything that comes out of her mouth is utter bullshit, cackling, word salad or semen.

Jupiter said...

Do they mention that he's a filthy, stinking Communist, like his whore of a daughter?

AlbertAnonymous said...

She’s just so detestable….

Yancey Ward said...

Mentioning the father too much will cause the voters to pay attention to the communism.

Gunner said...

Imagine how funny as hell it would be if the two Dons went golfing together and her dad endorsed Trump!

Pillage Idiot said...

I believe he liked price controls when he wrote Marxist economics academic papers.

However, now that he is entered the real world as a consultant to the Jamaican government, he is NOT pushing for price controls.

john mosby said...

Thought maybe she was hiding him because he’s too light-skinded. But no, he is still visibly AA. And in his youth he sported a fab fro. So it must be the political disagreement.

JSM

RCOCEAN II said...

when you're a deadbeat dad, that divorced your wife with little kids, and never saw them, but you end up being described by the NYT's as a "Fleeting figure" - you know you've got it made.

Has the NYT's reported that Kamalas husband - Doug Emhoff -got his Nanny pregnant and tried to convince her to have an abortion? Imagine if JD Vance had done something like that? We'd never hear the end of it.

john mosby said...

BYW, the Fab Fro would be a great name for a black Beatles cover band. They could funk up the whitey-white music-hall and psychedelic songs, then take the R&B songs the Beatles whitened up in the early days and make them even whiter.

JSM

Narr said...

She didn't smoke enough reefer, if you ask me. Like whazziz name the beefy Reagan dude.

Wince said...

rhhardin said...
What does this economist think about price controls and price gouging, is the question.

Just found this searchable PDF copy of his 1978 book Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution. Print copies seem to no longer available at book resellers. (Bought out by Harris campaign?)

Initial take aways: Survey of economic theories with vaunting of Marxist theory typical of academics prior to Soviet Union collapse.

"Supply and demand" are mentioned but once on page 17 of of the 333 page book.

Also perhaps gives you insight into the aspirational origin of Kamala's pseudo-intellectual prolix.

https://web.stanford.edu/~dharris/papers/Capital%20Accumulation%20and%20Income%20Distribution.pdf

Amadeus 48 said...

The Fab Fro could be a warm up band for The Little Vindmans--or vice-versa.

Wince said...

BTW, Donald Harris's book Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution (1978) was dedicated "To Kamala and Maya."

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I'll give credit where credit is due. Not every little girl with a serious, accomplished, absent and disapproving father grows up to have profitable sex with Willie Brown.

planetgeo said...

I notice a disturbance in the fro. Hence the conspicuous absence of Inga, Rich, gadmosquito,...

rehajm said...

When you’re caught schtupping the nanny one strategy is to leave your aging wife and marry her…

rehajm said...
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mccullough said...

Her dad is younger than Willie Brown.

Lawnerd said...

If she smoked weed she is truly vile for having sent others to prison for doing the same.

Old and slow said...

Her father may be a Marxist economist (though I read that he advocated sensible policies for Jamaica), but I certainly do approve of his stern and unequivocal comments about marijuana use.

John henry said...

Bibliography of Donald Harris professional publications

https://web.stanford.edu/~dharris/papers.htm

John Henry

Dave Begley said...
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Dave Begley said...

The United States could elect a radical progressive President whose dad was a Marxist. She failed as VP. The VP could be another radical progressive who failed as Gov. of MN. He's been to China about 30 times and is a fan of Mao. But the NYT and CNN don't care and what us to experience the joys of communism.

n.n said...

Karma-la has a mother and father. Novel green.

Michael K said...

Studies have shown which party is the crazier one's.

Shouting Thomas said...

I can’t get into fighting over this election as if it weren’t already rigged and sabotaged. Who in the hell voted for Harris in primaries?

Narr said...

Oh she's pretty vile all around, IMHO, weed aside.

gilbar said...

her father, a prominent economist..
Serious Question..
Was he EVER "prominent" for ANYTHING, Other than being a Marxist?

I've currently been reading some of the works of Thomas Sowell.. Another black economist..

They seem Quite similar.. (i mean this TOTALLY sarcastically)
One was "the first black economist granted tenure at Stanford" (Harris)
the other is a "senior fellow" at the Hoover Institution there

One, has "published several books on the economy of Jamaica" (Harris)
The other, has published about FIFTY books on economics

Both were Marxists in their 20's.. One grew up (I'll let you guess which one)

OH! and one grew up in poverty in Harlem, and served in the Korean War, and went to school on the GI bill.. The other was the ancestor of FABULOUSLY Wealthy slave owners, who never worked a day in his life (again, i'll let you guess which)

gilbar said...

politico: Kamala Harris shamed by Jamaican father over pot-smoking joke
The elder Harris sent an unsolicited statement to Kingston-based Jamaica Global Online..

“My dear departed grandmothers.. as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” he wrote.

“Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” he added.

Blair said...

An absent black father. How unusual.

gilbar said...

Kamala Harris shamed by Jamaican father over pot-smoking joke

Achilles said...

Everyone else is crazy.

Says everyone else.

Achilles said...

Not a disagreement. Inconvenient.

He is a marxist.

Achilles said...

And Kamala has clearly acted out her daddy issues.

Aggie said...

Naked Ambition is a life path with many bends and turns. And as we can see, when that path is as twisted as this one, there's really no telling what might lie around the previous corners - they can't be seen. And it would appear few are willing to explore past what has already been recorded, to bring them into the light.

The same can be said about the path ahead - twisted, not plainly evident, and no telling what might lie around those future corners.

Narr said...

Because I missed it in the Prof's post, gilbar?

Tina Trent said...

I knew a Czech illegal imigrant who proudly showed me his Seventies wedding photo with he and his wife, both very white, sporting giant afros in honor of Angela Davis, who made numerous anti-American, pro-Stalin tours with the fascist-communist government capos through the Eastern European bloc in the Sixties and Seventies. I mean quite specifically Stalin-Stalin.

The Czechs I knew in building trades were all illegals. They all came here through what they called "Polish Mafia" and flew into JFK with faked documents. Then they were basically enslaved by "Polish Mafia" and made to build homes without getting paid. This guy also showed me a puncture scar that went in his stomach and came out his back. "Soviet machinery," he explained.

Immigration is the meat of this election. Don't ever forget that.

Great carpenters. Even better cooks, if you're partial to tongue and knuckles. They had lost their illusions about such youthful Marxism long ago, as I imagine Kamala's father did. You have to be pretty rich and have no-show jobs to be a leading communist in America today. Government or academia for the powerful ones who started a few decades or so ago; Starbuck's for the ones indoctrinated in higher education today.

I again recommend the film Burnt by the Sun.

Peachy said...

One side is insane and dangerous.

One side isn't. Pick.

Tucker destory's Kamala - exposing some of her lie.
Kamala is a dangerous liar.

Peachy said...

"exposing some of her LIES"

Jamie said...

Did I miss something? Where was the homage? The quote from her book is about her mother, isn't it?

Jamie said...

Oh, it was in her speech! I missed that; I'm with my parents and Thursday is Midsomer Murders night.

Narayanan said...

could also be pretened ploy to deny marxian roots

Peachy said...

Why the corrupt leftist Machine should die in a fire.

John said...

Thanks to John Henry, who provided a link to a list of publications by Donald Harris. As an emeritus academic economist at a much lesser university, I will note that Harris published twice in the American Economic Review (the top general interest journal in Economics), once in the Journal of Political Economy (published out of the University of Chicago), once in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (published out of Harvard and MIT), and once in the Economic Journal (London School of Economics). Overall, that is the record of a serious economist. It is not surprising that he was tenured at a university like Stanford. It is also very unlike the record of a DEI hire. Frankly, I expected a much worse record.

Biff said...

Tom T. said...

"In other words, Harris and her father are estranged and hostile, and reporters know that they'll get punished if they try to ask why."

Once again, imagine if the candidate's party were reversed. No stone would be unturned to get to the bottom of the story.

Iman said...

Crack hasn’t posted on this thread… at least that I noticed.

walter said...

Distancing from him like they distance from Berserkley. Hush, hush.

JAORE said...


"... described by the NYT's as a "Fleeting figure". I call autocorrect. Should have called him a "fleeing" figure.

JIM said...

Obama mentioned his father in abstract terms, and his mother because this is America. But he hardly acknowledged his whiteness as President. Now we have Harris who is situationally either Asian or Jamaican. I wonder which one is Pink?

Tina Trent said...

John: I've met a lot of professors from Africa and the Carribbean -- I worked out of Clark-Atlanta for six months (public university attached to Spellman and Morehouse). They're the cream of the crop from their countries, so I find it no surprise that Harris' father is quite accomplished, if Marxist, or once Marxist. Especially among those from poorer countries, thirty years back, these folks didn't come here to teach "studies" or impose DEI. They were here to learn engineering and science to work with others in STEM fields to go home and improve their countries.

That's different now in many cases. I had interesting discussions with one desparing economist who was shocked by the poor caliber and behavior of his students in America.

And when I taught at a poor community college, I had a bunch of older Jamacian women students becoming pharmacists together. They were the best students, very cheerful but stern -- and kept the rowdies in strict control. Of course, many if not most of those people received excellent British educations from their former colonizers, now Commonwealth partners.