Name: Kamala Harris launches 2020 campaign with Oakland rally
Uploaded: 2020-03-09T21:24:44.000Z
Duration: 34 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

We're interrupting this story to tell you that California Senator Kamala Harris is making her 2020 plan's official in Oakland today.

She's taking the stage in her hometown after announcing her run for president last week.

I want to thank Libby Shaft, the great mayor of the city of way, that incredible introduction and our long standing friendship.

You know, our mothers were friends together also here in Oakland.

And I can't thank you, Libby, enough for your leadership in your friendship.

Well, let me tell you, I am so proud to be a daughter of old in California.

And as most of you know, I was born just up the road at Kaiser Hospital.

And it was just a few miles away that my parents first met as graduate students at UC Berkeley, where they were active in the civil rights movement, and they were born half a world apart from each other.

My father, Donald, came from Jamaica to study economics.

My mother, Shamila, came from India to study the science of fighting disease.

They came here in pursuit of more than just knowledge.

Like so many others, they came in pursuit of a dream, and that dream was a dream for themselves.

For me and my sister Meyer as Children growing up here in the East Bay, we were raised by a community with the deep belief in the promise of our country and a deep understanding of the parts of that promise that still remain unfulfilled.

We were raised in a community where we were taught to see a world beyond just ourselves, to be conscious and compassionate about the struggles of all people.

We were raised to believe public service is a noble cause, and the fight for justice is everyone's responsibility.

In fact, my mother used to say, Don't sit around and complain about things.

Basically, I think she was basically saying, You've got to get up and stand up and don't give up the fight.

And it is this deep rooted belief that it inspired me to become a lawyer and a prosecutor.

It was just a couple of blocks from this very spot.

Nearly 30 years ago, as a young district attorney, I walked into the courtroom for the first time and said the five words that would guide my life's work.

I knew our criminal justice system was deeply flawed, but I also knew the profound impact law enforcement has on people's lives and its responsibility to give them safety and dignity.

I knew I wanted to protect people, and I knew that the people in our society who are most often targeted by predators are also most often the voiceless and vulnerable, I believe.

And on that line, and on that point I believed, and on that point I believed then, as I do now, no one should be left to fight alone.

Because you see, in our system of justice, we believe that a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us.

That is why when a case is filed, it doesn't read the name of the victim.

And this is a point I have often explained, to console and counsel survivors of crime, people who faced great harm, often at the hands of someone they trust being a relative or a bank or a big corporation, I would remind them you are not invisible.

We all stand together because that is the power of the people and my whole life I've only had one client, the people and fighting for the people.

Men fighting on behalf of survivors of sexual assault of a fight not just against predators but a fight against silence and stigma for the people meant fighting for a more fair criminal justice system.

At a time when prevention and redemption were not in the vocabulary or mindset of most district attorneys.

We created an initiative to get skills and job training instead of jail time for young people arrested for drugs, for the people, men fighting for middle class families who had been defrauded by banks.

And we're losing their homes by the millions in the great recession.

And I'll tell you, Sitting across the table from the big banks, I witnessed the arrogance of power, wealthy bankers accusing innocent homeowners of fault as it law streets.

So we went after the five biggest banks in the United States.

We won $20 million wait on together we passed the strongest anti foreclosure law in the United States of America.

Way together for the people meant fighting transnational games who traffic in drugs and guns and human beings.

And I saw this sophistication, their persistence and their ruthlessness and folks on the subject of transnational gangs.

The President's mid evil vanity project is not going to stop them.

And in the fight for the people toe, hold this administration accountable.

I have seen the amazing spirit of the American people during the health care.

I saw parents and Children with grave illnesses walk the halls of the United States Congress families who had traveled across the country at incredible sacrifice.

They came to our nation's capital believing that if their stories were heard and if they were seen, their leaders would do the right thing.

I thought the same thing with are dreamers.

They came by the thousands by plane, train, automobile.

I'm sure they were sleeping 10 deep on someone's living room floor, and they came because they believe in our democracy and the Onley country they have ever known as home.

I met survivors who shared their deepest and most painful personal experiences, who told stories they had never before revealed even to their closest love ones because they believed that if they were seen that their leaders would do the right thing and protect the highest court in our land.

And together we took on these battles and to be sure we won and we've lost.

But we have never stopped fighting way have never stopped fighting on.

That's why we are here to day and that's why we are here today.

We are here knowing we are at an inflection point in the history of our world.

We are at an inflection point in the history of our nation.

We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before.

And we are here at this moment in time because we must answer a fundamental question.

So let's answer that question to the world and each other right here and right now.

America, we are better than this are better than this when we have leaders well, bully and attack of free press and undermine our demand at democratic institutions.

When white supremacists march and murder in Charlottesville or massacre innocent worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue, that's not our America when we have Children in cages crying for their mothers and fathers.

Don't you dare call that border security?

That's a human rights abuse when we have leaders who attack public schools and vilify public school teachers.

When bankers who crashed our economy get bonuses.

But the workers who brought our country back can't even get a raise.

And when American families are barely living paycheck to paycheck, what is this administration's response?

Their response is to try and take health care away from millions of families.

Their response is to give away a trillion dollars to the biggest corporations in this country, and their response is to blame immigrants as the source of all our problems.

And guys, let's understand what's happening here.

People in power are trying to convince us that the villain in our American story is each other.

You see, our United States of America is not about us versus them.

And in this moment we must all speak truth about what is happening.

We must seek truth, speak truth and fight for the truth.

Our economy today is not working for working people.

But paychecks aren't keeping up for so many Americans.

A decent retirement feels out of reach, and the American dream feels out of touch.

The truth is, our people are drowning in debt record student loan debt, car loan, debt, credit card debt.

Resorting to payday lenders because you can't keep up with the bills.

We have a whole generation of Americans living with a sinking fear that they won't do as well as their parents.

And let's speak another truth about our economy.

Women are paid, on average, 80 cents on the dollar.

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Kamala Harris launches 2020 campaign with Oakland rally

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