Joe Biden announced the selection of Kamala Harris as his running partner for Vice President role against the incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Kamala Harris is the second African American woman to become a US senator. She was also California’s first female attorney general.
Kamala was born and raised in the Bay Area, the melting pot of American tech industry. She has close ties with the industry and enjoys deep insights in its workings. Kamala was relentless in her questioning of Mark Zuckerberg during the senate hearing in 2018 following the revelation that one of Facebook’s partner developers, Cambridge Analytica engaged in illegal data trading using Facebook’s platform. Most of Kamala’s senator colleagues who questioned Mark struggled to grasp the business model of Facebook and seemed to mistakenly think that users are Facebook’s customers. Facebook’s tacit response to several questions during the inquiry successfully concealed the fact that its users are indeed unpaid data suppliers to Facebook.
But Kamala was precise in her questions during the inquiry. She had clarity on Facebook’s customers who paid them for the company’s products and services and users who owned the data which were collected by Facebook’s platform. Kamala turned the spotlight on Facebook’s business model of users’ data trading through its partner developers when she asked Mark “Did anyone at Facebook have a conversation, at the time that you became aware of this breach ( Cambridge Analytica misappropriating data belonging to 87 million users in 2015), have a conversation wherein the decision was made not to contact the users?”
Kamala Harris, the attorney, was at her best and Mark was forced to be precise in his answer. He had to either admit that he, as the CEO was not aware of the senior leadership withholding information of data abuse from its users or that Facebook’s management did not know about the data abuse. Mark chose to plead ignorance and said “I’m not sure whether there was a conversation about that… but … in 2015 when we heard about this, we banned the developer (who pays Facebook for access to the data), and we demanded that they delete all the data and stop using it. From then on, the ugly underbelly of Facebook’s global data trading was open for all to see. In May 2020, America, the richest country in the world, became the worst COVID-19 affected country. Amid the pandemic ravaging the entire world, America became the most polarised and sharply divided country on earth following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed African American by the state police officers. Facebook’s computer algorithms are designed to divide community opinions and thoughts to maximise the data supply to its platform. Facebook’s own recent internal business strategy documents concluded that “our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness (by securing more data feeds into the platform)”. With around 43% of Americans dependent on Facebook for their daily newsfeed, every sharply divided day in America is a day of celebration for Mark Zuckerberg.
Kamala wrote about the correct pronunciation of her name and its meaning in Truths We Hold, her memoir published in January 2019. Shortly after the publication of her memoir, President Trump, in an interview with New York Times butchered the pronunciation of Kamala as Kameela. For Trump nicknaming his opponents and mispronouncing the names of accomplished individuals seem like crude jokes for his audience. In February 2020, while speaking to a large audience in India, he referred Swami Vivekananda as Swami Viveka-mu-nand. Trump may not know the less known 9/11 in American history. On11 September 1893, Swami Vivekananda started his Chicago address to the world’s religious leaders with the profound words “Sisters and brothers of America”.
Kamala, meaning lotus flower may be on track for her tryst with destiny. In Hindu mythology, Mahalakshmi (Lakshmi) — the goddess of wealth, health and prosperity sits in the lotus flower or Kamala.
Lakshmi is the consort of Lord Vishnu — the protector of the universe who is the God with a capital G, and who is in charge of all worldly humane affairs like love, wealth, property, relationships, war and peace, and hence management, containment and eradication of COVID-19 pathogen also. The other two Gods with capital G are Brahma the creator and Shiva. Shiva oversees creative destruction or what scientists call the ultimate black hole. The meaning of Shiva is “that is not” or nothing — the blackhole. Creative destruction may sound oxymoronic, but that is what makes Shiva so unique.
Lakshmi, through her different avatars, went through all races and even aliens from different planets and extra-terrestrial elements. Incidentally, Kamala Harris’ mother is an Indian American with ancestral roots in India, and her father is an Africa American with ancestral roots in Jamaica.
The Kamala, lotus flower is also incredibly unique. Kamala is an enabler of Lakshmi who is the consort and chief advisor of Vishnu. In Hindu mythology, names like Kamala comes to the holder of that name because it is intended to be so, destined, and ordained. The destiny and the associated karma vasanas or latent tendencies and behaviour intentions towards actions are accumulated through previous births, the heritage of parents and grandparents. Those who bear the name of the lotus flower or Kamala, in which Lakshmi sits carry the amsa or tiny bits and energy particles of Lakshmi, the goddess and consort of Vishnu the God. Looking through the prism of Hindu mythology, the Gods may have been preparing America for the first female African American President.
