Why Kamala Harris?

The wealthiest ethnic groups of Americans are Asian, specifically, Indian Americans (household income $123,453). After that it's Taiwanese Americans (household income $102,328). Just for comparison, English and German American household income (my ethnicity who were here before the Revolution) is under $50,000. Even the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribal nation members have a household income higher than English and German Americans. But most whites (as Europeans are called) are not even close to Indian or Taiwanese. Indian Americans used to be grouped with "white" in these divisions until the government needed to slice and dice our ethnicities for political purposes. Whites took a "cut in pay" so to speak when the Indians were lumped with Asians.

So in a party obsessed with identity politics, why isn't Kamala Harris called an Indian American? Tamils, or Indians, the people of her mother, have a population of around 76 million and with a documented history stretching back over 2,000 years. They are one of the largest and oldest extant ethnolinguistic groups in the modern world according to Wikipedia (it's not always the best source, but it's the fastest).

Joe Biden has flip flopped on every race and sex issue in the last 40 years. He didn't need to choose Kamala Harris to satisfy Blacks--he's already announced that he owns them. He needed a "black" female to satisfy his white base, particularly women and the younger demographic. And it looks like a wealthy, privileged Indian American would have filled the bill, even if not very accurate for identity politicking. Democrats will just ignore that they have 2 of the most notorious law and order candidates (in their former lives) in recent history.

Income Mobility in the U.S. from 1996 to 2005, updated in 2014

The degree of mobility in the overall population and movement out of the bottom quintile in this study are similar to the findings of prior research on income mobility.

• There was considerable income mobility of individuals in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period as over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile over this period.
• Roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom income quintile in 1996 moved
• Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the top 1/100 of 1 percent
• only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005. Moreover, the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period. </
• The degree of mobility among income groups is unchanged from the prior decade (1987 through 1996).
• Economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most taxpayers over the period from 1996 to 2005. Median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after adjusting for inflation. The real incomes of two-thirds of all taxpayers increased over this period. In addition, the median incomes of those initially in the lower income groups increased more than the median incomes of those initially in the higher income groups.

Previous research on income mobility over the past several decades has generally found that about half of those in the bottom quintile move to a higher quintile and also that more than half of households move to a different income quintile within about 10 years.

Report of the Department of Treasury, updated 2008 

 http://reason.com/archives/2014/06/04/income-mobility-myths