In the process of being grilled at yesterday’s conference of black journalists, Donald Trump noted the constant fluctuating of Kamala Harris’s racial identification according to what audience she’s addressing and what will best serve her ambition at the time. In the cooking show segment above, for example (I apologize for Juanita’s vulgarity), Kamala pronounced herself “Indian.”
Ethics Alarms generally refers to her as “sort-of black” [I now see that WordPress’s AI bot presumes to challenge my use of the term “generally.” It can bite me.] Trump said, “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.”
NPR, a card-carrying member of the Axis and as determined as any media outlet to elect Kamala Harris and as many Democrats as possible, stated outright that “Trump was lying” in its email to me linking this article. Thank-you, NPR, for a perfect example of news media bias and the unethical manner in which it will cover this campaign.
It was not very long ago that black leaders in the U.S. decreed that the only non-racist term for black citizens was “African-Americans.” By that definition, Kamala Harris is not black. Her father was Jamaican (When Major League Baseball tallies up its ethnic and racial components, it doesn’t count Jamaican players as black, and black advocacy groups have no problem with that, since in this context, the objective is to show as few authentic blacks as possible—you know, so they can claim baseball is racist. If I didn’t hate the phrase “just sayin’!” so much, I would interject, “Just sayin’!”) and her mother was Indian. Vivek Ramaswamy was among those who rated Trump’s analysis as an inconvenient truth. “Many Indian-Americans in the US are indeed somewhat offended by the way Kamala has suddenly cast aside the Indian-American side of identity… She wore that when it was convenient. She’s wearing a different identity now.”
But the Axis, including Harris herself of course, “pounced” on Trump’s typically blunt statement of fact. Here’s the Associate Press:
And here was the Associated Press in 2016:
Not “African-American.” India-American.
First the news media denies that Harris is a DEI VP, and without her skin shade and lady parts, would still be a mediocre, semi-coherent U.S. Senator. Now it denies that Harris has been manipulating her racial identification, which she obviously has. A candidate’s race shouldn’t be an issue in this election, but making it one was the Left’s choice, not Donald Trump’s. If the issue exposes the Democratic Party and Harris’s cynicism and hypocrisy, well, good.
They asked for it.
Ethics Alarms 
Is she a pull-start, 👳🏾♀️a push-start, or a kick-start? 🤣 (Sorry, couldn’t resist)
Changing the subject (mercifully) I want to add that once again I wish I could have answered Harris Faulkner’s question to Trump about whether he felt that Vance was ready to be President on Day One, should it become necessary. Trump ducked the question entirely. What he should have said is that nobody is ready to be President on Day One, because the job is like no other, and its a learning process under pressure. Being a natural leader helps, but its no guarantee. IF a VP has been made a key part of an administration by POTUS, he or she might have more useful prep than most, but that still isn’t enough to make a VP ready on Day One. Just being a Senator, like JD Vance, is no preparation at all. Trump, as a CEO, had more relevant experience on Day One.
I remember back in the early ’90s when Mrs. OB was in management at American Express and trying to keep their minority employment numbers up, She explained she couldn’t count “double minorities” such as the black woman who worked in her department; she only counted as one minority. Now, of course, Harris is trying to count as a triple minority. And Mr. Emhoff would be the first Jewish First Spouse! I wonder why they aren’t playing that up? And he’s a lawyer! Voters would be getting two presidents for the price of one, just like Bill and Hill!
Why? He’s the wrong color, that’s why. Many blacks don’t like it when powerful members of their group, even “sort-of” members, marry whites, and the hostility is typically focused on the white spouse. (The black women on the OJ jury didn’t like Nicole.) Kamala’s hubby is going to be the Invisible Man until November.
He’s not just the wrong color, he’s JEWISH! He’s probably from HymieTown, or at least has relatives there! Hah!
It’s rather ironic that the treatment of Kamala’s husband seems to be based heavily on the color of his skin. That feels an awful lot like how we define “racism.”
Maybe Broaddrick (what a name!) meant to use “ficking”?
You remember who Juanita is, don’t you? She’s the woman who says Bill Clinton raped her, whose story was buried by the news media despite being found to be credible by the journalists who bothered to investigate.
Yes, I do. I was surprised to see she’s still around. Good for her. Quite an accomplishment.
Trump will always butcher these types of messages. He likes to think himself the smartest man in the room, but he hasn’t listened enough to understand how to phrase his thoughts coherently. To the reasonably intelligent person, we understand that he’s bemoaning VP Harris’s use and exaggeration of different parts of her identity when it suits her objectives.
To that end, I think that is her right. He believes the display of the black side of her identity is not genuine, and he’s potentially correct. We’ve seen her talk with various affectations in numerous instances, ostensibly to suit the audience of the moment.
What we know as fact is that she has a South Indian mother, a Jamaican Black father, and she was born in California, never really setting roots with frequent moves around the midwest and eventually back to California to start schooling K-6 grade. Her father left when she was 6. She was raised in a South Indian household. She moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada when she was 12, and she attended 1 year of college in Montreal and then went on to Howard University, an HBCU, in Washington, D.C.
I don’t buy into the argument that she isn’t black because her father was Jamaican. She herself wasn’t born or raised in Jamaica. She had the American experience. Some part of that experience was black and some part was South Indian and reasonable people recognize her mixed identity while acknowledging it doesn’t directly translate / correlate to a fully urban American black experience. It’s cringy at times to see disingenuous pandering because it turns the back to one’s true identity.
With all of that said, you all know I can’t stand her and I hate her political stance on nearly every issue. There is a 0% chance I could vote for her today and less than 0.01% chance my mind could be changed before the election. I do not want to see her elected as our next president, but I don’t think dissecting her identity and her attempts to relate to voters is going to swing voters against her.
I completely agree with your final-sentence summation. There are far better issues with VP Harris to exploit – and issues carry far more resonating power with voters than the victim groups into which she attempts to classify herself.
Again, President Trump should begin with the sixty-second smackdown that Tulsi Gabbard laid on Harris in the first 2020 debate…the smackdown that ended Harris’ run for President. THAT’s something of substance. Heritage means little when you’re lousy at your job.
I feel that Harris is disqualified from high public office by her actions as DA. As a DA she was found to have hidden exculpatory evidence on numerous occasions. She refused to implement a policy of turning over exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys. She refused DNA testing for a death row inmate, a decision that has led to over 15 years of court battle (wouldn’t it have been far cheaper to allow the DNA testing?). She kept a man in prison for 2 years after his conviction had been overturned. After he finally got out, she tried to have his release cancelled on the basis of ‘late paperwork’. Let’s not forget the people she held in prison past their sentence because she was using them as slave labor for the state. Her convictions of people solely upon the testimony of paid witnesses (up to $60,000 paid) who lied and said they were NOT paid doesn’t help my opinion of her.
I don’t care what her race is, I don’t care what positions she claims to have. Such a person cannot be president.
I just want to see the black community decide what is meant by “black.” If it’s just color, fine: that reduces it to a trivial level everyone can understand, and ignore. Harris was picked to be VP because of her skin shade (and ovaries). Got it. Is that something to be proud of? Dissecting her ever-changing identity claims is just one part of demonstrating her #1 defining characteristic, which is that of an ambitious, unauthentic, empty suit. Yeah, I wish Trump could speak with precision. He can’t, and never will.
Amen to all of the above. Obama and Harris are black, but Alex Rodriguez and Pedro Martinez aren’t. And Harris’s black component comes from a Caribbean father. “If you’re from the Caribbean, you ain’t black!” Right? And by the way, both Obama’s and Harris’s fathers abandoned them promptly after bestowing all that wonderful blackness on them, never to be seen again. Nice.
Harris’ father disputes that. Although Kamala Harris states that her father abandoned her, he said there was a bitter custody fight. He states that her mother used the “Jamaicans are all pot-smoking, abusive, lazy, bums” argument against him (a Berkeley economics professor and advisor to the leaders of Jamaica) and it worked. He was denied custody. So, she was raised with South Indian cultural influence only. She also has spoken with disdain of her Jamaican heritage, mainly stereotyping them all as pot smokers. That is why her father feels she is not qualified to be president.
Exactly this.
I’ve known multiple biracial females reared by single white mothers. Nearly universally they’ve felt exiled by the black community because their mannerisms are more “white” than black. No matter appearance.
Trump probably knows this, and is playing to it.
Theoretically do we not all have ancestral roots to the African continent if that is where hominids developed and migrated from?
What all of this nonsense about being black harkens back to the one drop rule which was used to discriminate against mixed race persons.
If you have lived in relative safety of a middle or upper class family then trying to claim an understanding of the struggles of those born into intergenerational poverty is a fraud no matter who you are. It appears that Vance has better understanding of the struggle to achieve by those living in poverty than Harris.
Wait. When was she a beneficiary of the second wave of bussing, as she stated when she scolded Biden for his stance(s) on race?
jvb
Bussing was a two way street in the early 70’s. I grew up in Baltimore City and the issue then among white families was not bussing black children into their white schools it was about forcing white kids out of their neighborhood schools and bussing them across town.
I remember vividly the fight about this when they wanted kids from the Perring – Loch area (1 mile radius) bussed to the new school at Lake Clifton which was about five miles further away and located in a far less desirable area of town. The result of mandated bussing proposal was that the Perring Loch students did not have to go to Lake Clifton but students from all over Baltimore could choose to go to Northern. Northern High, then a predominantly white school, became overcrowded through the promotion of integration of schools. To facilitate the growth in population at that school grade 10 went to school from 12-4 while 11th and 12th grades went from 8-12. The forced integration resulted in a lower quality education for all.
Agreed, but she told the entire world she was a beneficiary of bussing. I wonder if she might have been telling a tall tale . . .
jvb
Maybe she rode the buses in Berkeley and had to fight off the roving street gangs of physicists and mathematicians.
1. Your post actually prompted an illicit comment from Banned Chris! Congrats!
2. Harris has been allowed to claim to be Indian, and black. Question: would Obama have been tolerated if he called himself white in front of white audiences and black in front of black groups?
No Obama wouldn’t have been allowed but he should be allowed.
Fascinating.
Wanda Sykes had a stand-up line about this. I could not find it but I found part of an interview:
Where do you stand on Obama? I still feel good about him, but I have been referring to him as the half-white guy, I gotta say. [laughs] At first I was very proud he was the first black president. Now things aren’t looking good, so he’s the half-white guy.
-Jut
Anyone who knows anything about the history of race in this country knows why half-white half-black people don’t identify as “white” and why this is a bad faith question. Certainly a man of your education has heard of the one-drop rule. “White” isn’t really a race, it’s a social category meant to put certain people at the top of a hierarchy. It’s why “white pride” is different than “black pride.” Lots of black people celebrate having German, Irish, or Italian culture and identify as such but they don’t go around identifying themselves as “white” because no one sees them that way and they are not treated that way in society. I’m embarrassed that I as a white guy am having to explain that to you—maybe talk to some people of color every now and then?
The one drop rule was, of course, absurd and racist. A whole book (and musical) was written about it. You’re endorsing it now?
Upon reflection, I can’t imagine why I allowed this comment on. In addition to being obnoxious and insulting, it’s really stupid. White is a construct but black isn’t. Sure. Blacks are a what is called “a minority.” Now it’s a minority that everyone is supposed to favor, accept unethical conduct from its members, and presume inherent virtue and superiority in its members. Harris’s existence as a VP and Presidential candidate rely on that fallacy: no wonder she wants to be black. In her case, it is literally based on skin shade, Not experience, not culture, not upbringing, not obstacles due to racism. If we gave out reparations for slavery, she’d get nothing.
JD Vance leaps and bounds more prepared to put together a coherent comment:
Reporter: “The former president’s comments yesterday to the National Association of Black Journalists where he said that Vice President Harris is, quote, all of a sudden black. As a father of three biracial children, did those comments give you pause at all?”
JD Vance: “They don’t give me pause at all. Look, all he said is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon. She goes to Georgia two days ago. She was raised in Canada. She puts on a fake southern accent.
She is everything to everybody and she pretends to be somebody different depending on which audience she’s in front of. I think it’s totally reasonable for the president to call that out. And that’s all he did.”
https://x.com/dom_lucre/status/1819132419066548379
Dave Chappelle helps to put things in perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z3wUD3AZg4
And if you have a couple of hours to spend on the topic, watch this classic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Brother
This is such a distraction. Trump needs to stay a million miles away from race and gender. There is no way on this planet he can even remotely win that argument. Pound on her policies, the Biden Administration policies, her background as district attorney and her Senate voting record. There is more than ample ammunition to destroy on those issues.
jvb
I don’t see how that is possible. Race and gender is all Harris has, and she will bring race into any legitimate criticism, just as she always has. Any criticism Trump offers will be called ‘More proof of white supremacy.” Trump wins, easily, if he focuses attention on Harris’s incompetence, failures and radical left policies (that she now denies), but it will keep coming back to race, because that the only battlefield Democrats think they can win on, that and abortion.
“…’and without her skin shade and lady parts, would still be a mediocre, semi-coherent U.S. Senator,” sez our host.
I beg to differ. Without her relationship with Willie Brown in California she would never have been the District Attorney of SF County, Attorney General of CA, let alone that mediocre Senator you mentioned. She is AA all the way…
I think there’s a term other than Affirmative Action for what Willie did for her, and what she did for him. A different type of action.
Is that called a “Harvey”?
Wait, I thought OB’s James Stewart vs. John Wayne thread was at this post “Harvey” is by far my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie, and Elwood P. Dowd his most memorable character.
Saying “I’m Indian!” Sometimes or “I’m black!” Sometimes depending on who you’re talking to is totally normal and appropriate when you’re half Indian and half Black.
Trump is in the wrong here.
Perhaps, but saying “I’m Indian” and then later saying “I’m Black and I’ve never said I was Indian” is not right. Trump is being attacked for this by folks saying she was never referred to as “Indian-American”.
Here’s an example: There is a WSJ article about the Trump interview with NABJ. Here is the lead paragraph:
“Former President Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris over her race, baselessly suggesting his election rival only began identifying as a Black woman in recent years.”
Given the AP tweet shown above from 2016, how can this reporter state — as fact — that this was ‘baseless’?
I emailed the reporter with that exact question, quoting both his article and the tweet. So far I have not received a response. We’ll see.
Where did she say she’s not Indian?
I think Trump is hitting a sore spot that won’t be covered publicly. Harris was ONLY Indian. If you look at everything up to 2020, she is Indian-American. It is never mentioned that she is black. She never mentioned it. The press never mentioned it. When the Democratic Party desperately needs the black vote, she is black. She is trying to mimic an inner-city black accent. She talks about being ‘in the streets’ and listening to rap music. That is pandering. It would be different if she was 25. If you go your entire life with an Indian-American identity into your 50’s, then suddenly say you are black to win black votes, it is going to rub some in the black community the wrong way. Trump tore into that. Now, it isn’t going to be discussed in the press, but you know there are a lot of people who are listening to the jokes about how the black community only matters to Democrats every 4 years.
I do wish Trump was a little faster on his feet. When asked “Are you going to tell Republicans to stop calling her a DEI hire?” He should have answered:
“Joe Biden said he would only choose a woman of color. By Joe’s own admission, Kamala Harris would not have been vice-president if she wasn’t a woman of color. So, I didn’t say that, I am just repeating what Joe said. Now, Do you support DEI? If you do, what is wrong with calling a person a DEI hire? If DEI is a good thing, wouldn’t it be a good thing to be called a DEI hire? Wouldn’t you publish the DEI hires for all the world to see? It is only a bad thing if DEI is really shameful and you are pushing a program that you are ashamed of. You really have a problem.”
“Harris was ONLY Indian.”
Just not Elizabeth Warren Indian, right…?
PWS
She literally went to an HBCU and was part of a black sorority. The claims that she never acknowledged her black side before 2020 are just ignorant. You have no evidence that “the black community” has a problem with Kamala identifying as black. All the criticism I’ve seen comes from “the white community.” You’re baselessly suggesting the black community has been rubbed the wrong way by this in order to give legitimacy to Trump’s racist attacks on Kamala’s biracial identity.
I’d love to see your definition of “racist attacks.” Trump quit fairly and reasonably highlights the way Harris weaponizes race, calls “racist” at every opportunity, and literally has built her career on her color rather than her accomplishments or ability. Calling attention to this is “racist” in your lexicon? Explain.
She isn’t talking on this as far as I know. But I was listening to MSNBC coverage — they were the ones saying she has always been black.
By the way, no response after 24 hours from the WSJ reporter.
That’s something we need to do more of — if they are going to baselessly smear Trump, they need to be called out on it.
You can turn that AI crap off in your WordPress settings, I found it in mine and it’s gone.
How???
I’ll send you an email with screen shots in a few minutes.