By Emil Guillermo

It’s year two of Joe Biden’s presidency and the best thing you can say about it is this: He remains committed to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris, the former California attorney general who announced her run for the presidency in Oakland, is a special symbol for all BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities — not just in our neck of the woods but for the nation and the world.

When we see Kamala, we see ourselves. We are there. Some of you might think you could do better. But more often, we’re just glad we have a representative in government. And that Kamala represents us. She is the first Black/Asian bi-racial American in the second highest office in the land.

If she’s there, we’re there. Our interests are not forgotten.

That’s the ideal. But in the first year of BiHar or JoeKam, there has been relatively little to cheer about.

Yes, we have the physical infrastructure deal. Good for roads and bridges, not families and seniors. There’s free masks and tests. But the voting rights loss was disheartening. Democrats don’t have the votes to overturn Republicans blocking anything by filibuster, that stonewall device used historically to kill civil rights legislation.

But Biden was positive in his One-Year-After news conference. He made news. He wants to run again — for now.

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The big question was posed by NBC’s Kristen Welker: “You put Vice-President Harris in charge of voting rights. Are you satisfied with her work on this issue?”

But Welker wasn’t satisfied with an answer on just voting rights, she wanted the HR status of the first African American/Asian American woman to hold the second highest office in the land. Welker wanted news.

“Can you guarantee, do you commit that she will be your running mate in 2024? Provided that you run again?”

The little aside at the end was to loosen the question a bit. But Biden didn’t hesitate.

“Yes. And yes.”

Welker, somewhat stunned by the brevity, asked, “Care to expand?”

“There’s no need to,” said Biden. “She could be my running mate, number one. And number two, I did put her in charge. I think she’s doing a good job.”

Biden was clearly in assumptive mode. He’s running. With Harris. Again. And he says he’s going to get out of his office and see people face-to-face around the country more. Sounds like a campaign.

That may be a way of jumpstarting his presidency, but it sounded more like jumping over the problems of today, which remain primarily COVID and the economy.

If President Biden wants to jumpstart anything, he simply needs to let us all know “he gets us.”

By that, I mean he needs to show he understands what all Americans are going through. Does he know the price of bread and milk? OK, how about vegan food?

The press conference coincided with the Asian American community’s mourning of Michelle Go. The 40-year-old woman from Fremont had finished an MBA in New York City and was settling in as an American success story. On the Times Square subway platform that week she was pushed from behind onto the tracks and to her death.

In some ways, the best way to remember Go is as a metaphor for where we all are in this country.

We are all hurting in this country and looking for a sense of normal. We’ve all been knocked from behind, by COVID and the economy. And by the previous administration. We’ve all lost our balance. Even the president.

But there’s still time to look to each other to help us all get back up.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. His talk show is on Facebook, Twitter and on www.amok.com

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