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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(118,798 posts)
Mon Jan 20, 2025, 07:52 PM Jan 20

I Was Kamala Harris' Videographer. I Wish I Could Show You What I've Seen. [View all]

Today, at the entrance of the White House, they took down the official portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris. It was the first time a woman’s face had hung there. As I walk out of the White House for the last time, I worry that this will be forgotten, that history will write her historic achievement out of the frame. I worry that Americans aren’t being given the chance to celebrate what she accomplished.

Over the past few years, as the official videographer and director of video to Vice President Kamala Harris, I traveled the world with her, watching her navigate the White House and the world stage. I observed and documented nearly everything she did every day through my trusty White House–issued Sony FX3. I filmed her in 11 countries and in 91 cities across 27 U.S. states. I observed her with prime ministers and presidents and chancellors and kings—almost all of them men—and with hostile Republicans and their spouses who wouldn’t shake her hand. I saw her with the wives of world leaders, bullied teenagers, doctors, doulas, CEOs, proud grandmothers, and excited grandchildren. I saw as she charmed skeptics and commanded rooms, as she considered reporters’ questions, as she walked across a stage with 70,000 eyes watching her every move. I was there when the Somdet Phra Sangkharat Sakonmahasangkhaparinayok, Thailand’s highest-ranking Buddhist monk, didn’t shake her hand.

As a filmmaker, this was a dream: filming history in action, documenting the first woman to serve in this role. And even though my heart is broken that she lost the election, and I was continuously enraged by the ways sexism and racism made everything harder for her, something unexpected happened to me on the job: I witnessed Harris’ impact, and it began to change me.

The best thing about working for Kamala Harris was watching a phenomenally competent and successful woman own her power in the most challenging of circumstances. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, you didn’t get to see that often enough.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-videographer-wish-could-183600207.html

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