I watched the Vice Presidential Debate, which I thought was very interesting in terms of issues involving systemic injustice. I watched the back half of the debate, but I got to hear the response to one question that was about the case of Breonna Taylor. Kamala Harris pointed out that during the first Presidential Debate that President Trump was not willing to condemn white supremacists, which I believe is a major systemic injustice in itself. Mike Pence replied to this by saying that what happened to Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were tragedies, but they don’t justify “rioting and looting”, although there has been a lot of data suggesting otherwise. The same thing happened when Pence was asked about the Corona Virus response, the Climate Change Crisis, and the President basically saying that science is wrong. The ignorance and unwillingness to look at facts is a major systemic injustice in my opinion. The President and the Vice President are trying to downplay and undermine the facts involving major issues that disproportionately affect more people of color. I think that there has been a lot of lying and downplaying from the Trump Administration about the severity of the Corona Virus, climate change, and racial injustice and I think that had they tried to acknowledge these properly, there could have possibly been some better situation right now.
Kamala Harris and Mike Pence in the First Vice Presidential Debate.
I also saw the way that Harris was being treated differently by Pence because she is a woman. Pence interrupted Harris multiple times and tried to silence her, but Harris was able to assert her equality to Pence by telling him that she is “speaking”, essentially telling him that she had just as much of a right to speak as he does. This was a major thing in fighting gender inequality and the fact that everything is catered in favor towards the male population. Her assertion of power in this example shows that she was able to overcome herself as being the “Other” and identifying herself as being equal to Pence. The main thing that I learned from the debate is that ignorance is another form of systemic injustice and it is ridiculous to me that the leaders of this country are so ignorant to facts presented to them.
Kamala Harris asserting her position of equality to Mike Pence.