I recently read Kamala Harris’s book The Truths We Hold: An American Journey and the accompanying workbook Reflective Exercise Book (Keypoints) for Kamala Harris’s The Truths We Hold: Reflection Exercises for Proper Understanding and Knowledge Mastery.
The workbook is a complete and utter scam. Harris should put on her prosecutor hat and go after any proceeds from it unless her pronouns are, in fact, he/him/his. Beyond that, The Truths We Hold is a campaign book written for the 2020 election cycle. The public is familiar with many of the stories in it as Harris has repeated them, almost word for word, often. As a daughter of two immigrants, she grew up in a middle-class family in Oakland, California. They had nice lawns.
What I was expecting was a book with three to five binding truths that we, as Americans, all share. In fact, I would still like to read that book if it’s out there somewhere, by any author, by any title, if anyone is aware of one.
It’s likely that the writing of Kamala’s book got pretty tricky, pretty fast as no actual truths are identified as such in it. One possible reason for this is because, while as a lifelong member of the middle class, I can speak at length on values of the middle class, for example-delayed gratification — this does not translate into an overarching value that all Americans share. I can speak about the truths that I hold, what I learned about equity for example, growing up in the midwestern United States, which boils down to this Dadism: “Fair? Fare is what you need to get on the bus!” Kamala’s American Journey was different than mine possibly because of socioeconomic, or cultural differences. Which is as it should be. Diversity of experience and of thought are essential for growth and development.
Penguin Books
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