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At the recently held National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in Chicago, IL, the Republican nominee for the presidency, Donald Trump (who was controversially invited as an attendee) claimed during an interview on stage with ABC News’ Rachel Scott that he “didn’t know” whether Vice President Kamala Harris is Black. 

As URL Partner Capital B reports, Trump went on to say, “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said July 31. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person.”

It’s a repugnant line of attack that’s nevertheless become an emerging argument from the right, with Trump campaign stumpers declaring dog-whistle statements on stage like, “unlike you Kamala, I know where I come from.” 

But Harris has always been clear about who she is and where she comes from. She is an American. She is Black and South Asian. She is the daughter of immigrants, an Indian mother: Shyamala Gopala and a Jamaican father, Donald J. Harris. As a Black Jamaican woman myself, I find any suggestion that Blackness and Jamaicanness are somehow mutually exclusive extremely offensive and uninformed. Jamaica is an island in the Caribbean with a population that is nearly 80% of African descent. Jamaicans have always been a proud people, deeply engaged in their connection to their African heritage, through food, music, dance, and religious practices. Jamaicans are Black, full stop. 

But the other dimension of the asinine questioning of Harris’ heritage is the suggestion that mixed race identity is not real or valid. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. More Americans than ever come from multiple backgrounds. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the multiracial population has seen a whopping 276% increase between 2010 and 2020, growing from 9 million people to 33.9 million. All identities are worthy of being recognized, and being more than one thing does not negate other inherent parts of a person. We should also be unflagging in calling out these attacks for what they are: race-based and racist. Denying who a person is should never be a normal part of political discourse, and we cheapen that discourse when we allow baseless claims like the one Trump made on the stage at NABJ to stand unquestioned — as it did on that day.  

While Trump’s own V.P. candidate, J.D. Vance, is the father of mixed race children with his Indian wife Usha Vance, the pernicious critique of Kamala Harris’ own identity is a reflection of the right’s rejection of a world of multi-racialism, and with it a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic democracy. We must oppose any promotion of the idea that Americans cannot come in all shades and colors, from all backgrounds, and be great members of this country. 

Whether or not Kamala Harris is your preferred candidate for the presidential election, let us not accept this petty teardown of her Blackness from a man who notoriously has targeted Black people for harm, not good.