{"id":563,"date":"2020-12-18T19:15:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T19:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/?p=563"},"modified":"2020-12-19T05:39:18","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T05:39:18","slug":"alexandria-ocasio-cortez-a-beacon-of-hope-and-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-a-beacon-of-hope-and-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez \u2013 A Beacon of Hope and Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aditi Singh Kaushik<\/em>
Vasanta College for Women, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A shocked and surprised Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez rushed into a watch party to witness the 2018 primary election results. Her eyes were glued to the television screen. She could not believe she defeated one of the strongest Democratic Challenger, Joe Crowley, by almost 15 percentage points. She could not believe she won. “There is nothing radical about moral clarity”<\/strong> was what she said to a reporter from Spectrum News as a bunch of people around her cheered and celebrated her win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular scene from the 2019 American Documentary Knock Down The House <\/strong>is embedded in my mind. The documentary, which focused on the primary campaigns of 4 progressive democrats \u2013 Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin, also shows how Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (AOC) won the primary and went on to win the district election as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AOC regards herself as a democratic socialist and has time to time, spoken firmly about major issues concerning the American working class and the youth. “For me, Democratic Socialism is about, really, the value for me is that I believe in a modern, moral, and wealthy society. No person in America should be too poor to live,” she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the plans she has raised and continues to sponsor is the Green New Deal<\/strong>. By supporting policies like a single-payer Medicare for all anda federal job guarantee, she has garnered the respect and attention of countless working-class people who look up to her as someone who represents their interests and concerns articulately, someone who is in touch with the ground realities and the problems working-class people and their families face in their daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In crucial times like these where many world leaders simply discard the existence of climate change and its implications, some of them who call global warming a ‘hoax’, AOC has time to time, been in the forefront to raise her voice against climate change and its implications on the USA and the world as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, she gave a powerful speech at a committee hearing in response to Republicans’ push-back on her Climate Change Policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is not an elitist issue. This is a quality of life issue. You want to tell people that their desire for clean water and clean air is elitist?” “This should not be a partisan issue,”<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>she asserted as she continued her speech at the committee hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By representing the interests and concerns of common people, AOC has positively become a role model for many people, especially for young girls and women who, just like her, want to bring a change in their country and the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 AOC, as the U.S Representative for New York’s 14th Congressional District, is also someone with whom some of us can relate to. Many women can relate to her because of the common link we share in the form of the number of hurdles, sexism, and misogyny we face as women in our day-to-day lives. Right from the inception of her political campaign, she has been open about her struggles and hardships, which she faced when she worked as a bartender, to the hardships she continues to face as a Congresswoman. In a recent Q\/A round on Instagram, when someone tried to shame her and asked if she is ready to bartend again when she loses her seat on November 3rd, AOC had a substantial response. One of her lines in her reply said, “I am not a classist who believes that a person’s job is reflective of their human worth.” This is just one of the several instances where AOC gave a bold reply to comments like these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In yet another recent instance, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was on the receiving end of some foul remarks given by a Republican Party Representative Ted Yoho. Yoho on the stairs of Capitol Hill made some awful remarks on her. Those remarks are reflective of what most women have to face in their daily lives. AOC did not back down. She did not simply accept his apology but gave a powerful statement, a statement that became a symbol of hope and power for every woman who looks up to her. AOC said, “Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. […] I am someone’s daughter, too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr. Yoho’s disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/strong>Her voice cracked as she said the last line. Nevertheless, she said. Many women, including me, could relate to her at that moment because most of us have been there. We have been in situations where people tried to silence us, trying to break our spirit. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez became an inspiration and showed what it is like to stand firm in the face of sexism and misogyny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 She continues to be a face of strength, power, and courage more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aditi Singh KaushikVasanta College for Women, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh A shocked and surprised Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez rushed into a watch party to witness the 2018 primary election results. Her eyes were glued to the television screen. She could not believe she defeated one of the strongest Democratic Challenger, Joe Crowley, by almost 15 percentage points. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[200,201,192,191],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-did-you-know","tag-aditi-singh-kaushik","tag-alexandria","tag-free-online-publishing-platform","tag-vov-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takhte.in\/VoiceofViews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}