“Is She Indian or Is She Black?”
Donald Trump claimed Kamala Harris was “always Indian” and recently “turned” Black. Both communities are neither surprised, nor amused.
On Wednesday, July 31, former President and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attended the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference in Chicago. The decision to invite Trump was already controversial. His response to a question from ABC’s Rachel Scott — “Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a Black woman?” — made clear why.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” said Trump. “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?”
“Somebody should look into that too,” Trump finished. While the former president is notorious for his diatribes, his most recent one points to a larger phenomenon that has haunted Harris since her rise to national office: people foisting their own understanding of her identity onto her.