Is Kamala Harris Really A Black?

  • AUTHOR: anam
  • POSTED ON: August 25, 2020

Another day, and another ‘Birther’ Hoax drama, and this time Kamala Harris is on the hit list!

Joe Biden, the hopeful Demorcative presidential candidate, announces that Sen. Kamala Harris would be his running mate this week, and news outlets went crazy. They heralded the critical aspect of her vice-presidential nomination, highlighting that she has become the first Black woman and the first Asian American woman ever to achieve this milestone.

But the actual news that really triggered some people was: Wait, what? Harris is an Asian BLACK American?  

As the true nature of conservatives, they started scrambling for things to criticize her about, and they actually found something – Her Heritage!

Harris’s heritage sparked controversy and a nationwide debate questioning whether she really was a true Black American?

Harris, a daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father, is a woman of South-Indian and African ancestry who identifies as Black. But not everyone agreed on that part, especially Trump supporters who started dissecting her ancestry, proving that she was or COULD be a black.

Even Harris’s Jamaican origins also refused to consider her as African-American, stating that her ancestry does not belong to American slavery age; hence, she cannot be a TRUE BLACK American citizen.

Apparently, with this belief, they are trying to say that Harris should not call herself the descendant of slaves, thus an African-American, because one of her ancestors may have been a slave keeper.

However, these objections could be completely baseless! The birthplace of Harris’s father, Jamaica, was an epicentre of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, a significant junction in Britain’s Atlantic empire, including the Bahamas and its colonies on the North American Coast.

Even most Jamaicans trace their ancestry directly to slavery and from the African captives imported in mass numbers to this place. So, there is a considerable possibility that Kamala Harris could belong to one of them.

And here comes President Donald Trump…

cashing yet another “birther” controversy but this time he claims that she is not even eligible to run for VP candidacy as she was not American at the time of her birth. During the Tuesday’s press conference, he said, “I just heard that I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,”

Donald Trump with his another clumsy attempt to stoke “birther controversy”- same old stunt!

In case if you’re wondering if she really is eligible, well, yes she is! Harris was born in California and she is eligible to be president or vice president of the country!

As far as the debate about Harri’s ancestry is concerned, Trevor Noah addressed the issue quite impressively! In his latest video clip, he called out the hypocrisy of some conservative media outlets that a Black person’s identity is never questioned in failure. Still, if they succeed or actually earn something significant, their race gets under strict scrutiny.

In a thrashing attempt to tear down the controversies surrounding Harris’s blackness, Trevor said, “Look, man, you can dissect Kamala Harris’ heritage however you want,” he continues. “But to say she’s not black? Ask yourself this question: Is she Black enough to get kicked out of a restaurant back in the Jim Crow South? Would she have been Black enough to get redlined? Is she Black enough to get kicked out of a whites-only school as a little girl? Then she’s Black.”

I guess no one could have explained this better than him…

You can see the full video here:

Harris once told during an interview in 2019 that she was raised to consider herself as Black American. She explained how her mother was very aware of the fact that she was raising two Black daughters. “My mother knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls.” Harris claims her Black heritage as much as she claims her Indian ancestry, “I was born Black. I will die Black. I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”

Such controversies indicate how Americans still struggle to talk about multiracial people. There is no single element or component that qualifies a person Black. I think it’s just a perception; much of our society (read this as a white society) can look at Harris and perceive her as Black, and she will, regardless, face racism as a result!

Updated August 25, 2020
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