As she runs for president in a political moment where victimhood is currency, Vice President Kamala Harris is pitching herself, even donning a fake accent, as someone who grew up in “the streets.”
But unfortunately for that narrative, as the political editor for Breitbart News (me), I grew up in the same neighborhood where Harris lived from age 12 to 18, and can report that calling her “middle class” is a clear stretch.
On Labor Day, Harris dished out one of her many faux-dialects, address A working-class crowd in Detroit, Michigan.
But to suggest that Harris naturally adopted the accent, or “code-switched,” as an Associated Press publicist put it, is virtually impossible. See also There's a reason for that, considering that not only did she not grow up in any working-class neighborhood, but she also grew up in one of the most posh areas of Canada, a Commonwealth country with a decidedly non-American English.
Harris left Berkeley when he was 12 after his mother died. Hired She worked with McGill University and did breast cancer research at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, where I was born. Local doctors called her a “pioneer.”
The area where Harris grew up is called Westmount. French Quebec.
While she undoubtedly experienced racism while she lived there, it was not the kind of thing she has claimed in recent years to have experienced in her strange, and apparently largely fictitious, origin story. She claims that she was born into a modest family and that, somehow, Had Some involvement in the civil rights movement.
Emma Jo Morris/Breitbart News
There is no racial hostility in Montreal. Although political discourse on race has been imported from the United States in recent years, for anyone who stopped living in Montreal before 2020, it will not be part of their cultural awareness or experience.
Montreal is indeed a “melting pot” in terms of racial and ethnic diversity, and thanks to a series of language and cultural laws that began to be implemented in the 1970s, it has always had the unique ability to welcome immigrants of all backgrounds, races and religions while still preserving its French culture.
Given Harris' story of her roots and personal experiences, the only discrimination she has experienced would be economic discrimination, as Montreal is the most economically segregated city in Canada. According to According to a study from the University of Toronto.
And Harris grew up in the city's most exclusive neighborhood. When she lived there, it was The nicest neighborhood In Montreal The wealthiest There is only one in all of Canada, a far cry from the “street” fighting that Harris now claims to support.
According to an op-ed written by a close friend from his days at Westmount High School: WrittenHarris lived with his mother and sister Maya in a Victorian house on Grosvenor Street, where friends described him as enjoying “family dinners and a stable life”.
This is the street where Harris grew up. These houses are list For a minimum of 1-2 million Canadian dollars (approximately 750,000-1.5 million US dollars) or more:
Emma Jo Morris/Breitbart News
It's in keeping with the lifestyle of most people in the area; it's one of the luckiest places one could live. Harris's allusion to “the street” is a tongue-in-cheek joke made by many who grew up there.
This is the main street that runs through the middle of the district and shares the same name.
This is Redfern Ave., with Harris High School on the corner.
Emma Jo Morris/Breitbart News
This is the library on the edge of Westmount Park, where she would have studied, borrowed books and passed through on her way to and from home and school every day.
Emma Jo Morris/Breitbart News
This is where Harris spent her time and where many, if not most, of her classmates lived.
Emma Jo Morris/Breitbart News
Harris has crafted a persona and pitched policies based on what is politically convenient at the time to capitalize on her chances, and it's worked to some extent (so far). Luckily for her, she's running for president at a time when the media and elites are at their dumbest and laziest, not bothering to analyze policies and instead trying to boil down a candidate's entire identity and worldview to a single physical characteristic, including race. So she's using this moment to use her race as some kind of tool to portray the opposite of what she really is: a great deal of privilege (as you can see), and to distract from her lack of real working-class connection and solutions.
You see, there's nothing wrong with being from this area. It's beautiful here. The people are happy. It's safe and a great place to grow up. But Harris' pandering to the “lower middle class” doesn't sit well.
Time for a new bit.
Emma Jo Morris is the Politics Editor for Breitbart News. She can be reached at ejmorris@breitbart.com or to follow Follow her on Twitter.
