Janet Jackson recently made comments about Vice President Kamala Harris’ race that have been proven to be false. Speaking to The Guardian, Jackson, now 58, pointed out that Harris is only of Indian descent, therefore, if elected she would not become the first black woman to become president.
All of these opinions are within the boundaries of conspiracy theories that were promoted some time ago by representatives of right-wing politicians, including Donald Trump.
One of the issues raised by the Grammy-winning singer in the interview was whether Harris could make history by becoming the first female black president of the United States. Discussing Harris’ ethnicity, Jackson told the British news outlet, “She’s not black. That’s what I heard. She’s Indian.”
This seemed to bother interviewer Nosheen Iqbal, but Jackson said Harris’ paternal ancestry is ‘white’ even though it is incorrect. She also confessed that she did not pay attention to the recent news. She said, “I was told that they found out that her father was white.” When asked, Janet Jackson was not sure if the country was ready to put a woman of color at the helm of the state. She said that no matter who wins the election, there is going to be “chaos” either way.
Contrary to Jackson’s argument, Kamala Harris’s background and ethnicity have never been a matter of ambiguity. Harris’s father, Donald J. Harris, is originally from Jamaica, but moved to the US to study economics at the University of California-Berkeley. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, also went to Berkeley from India and married Donald there. Harris has never claimed the contrary and those who have tried to present her otherwise have failed, as she is both South Asian and Black.
Donald Trump, 78, spread misinformation about Harris’ race by making false speculations at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference held in Chicago. “She was always of Indian descent and she was only promoting Indian descent. I did not know she was black, until many years ago, when she happened to be black and now she wants to be known as black. So I don’t know if she is Indian or black?” he said.
Harris went to Howard University, one of the most popular historically black colleges in the US. It was here that she realized her biological heritage as a black woman. Similarly, in her memoir The Truths We Hold (2019), she detailed her growing up as a black woman and what her mother had to think about the challenges associated with raising two black daughters in America. Harris’s White House biography also mentions that she was the first female vice president of the US, the first black American, and the first South Asian American to hold that position.
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