Does It Matter If Kamala Is Really Black Or Not?

Trump has been questioning Harris' racial claims...is he being too petty?

Donald Trump is ruffling feathers (so, basically it’s just a day ending in Y) over comments he’s been making about the authenticity of Kamala Harris’ “blackness.”

Harris was born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, and has identified as Black and Asian-American over the years. In service of her political run the mainstream media has chosen to lean heavily into her Black identity, presumably in the hopes of shoring up a Black vote that has been slowly but steadily leaking loyalists to the Trump camp.

Trump has been suggesting Kamala Harris isn’t really a Black woman, or at least doesn’t identify as one. Naturally left-wingers are deeply offended by this line of questioning, and view it as yet another racial aggression from the WORLD’S WORST PERSON™. There are plenty of conservatives who are also uncomfortable with Trump’s questions about Kamala’s race. Some say it’s a distraction. Some say it’s Trump’s ego clouding his judgement. Some say he needs to stop obsessing about this meaningless issue because it makes him look petty and unstable.

There’s something I’ve learned to do with Trump when he utters uncomfortable things - which he does frequently. The instinct of the modern American, particularly in the intellectual class, is to clutch one’s pearls and declare the questionable utterances “unhelpful” or “Trump’s ego in action.” It can end there, if you let it. But I’ve learned to ask, “Is it true?”

Nine times out of ten, if you look past the uncomfortable bluntness of Donald Trump and just evaluate the thought he’s conveying, he is saying something true.

So, when I heard him being (seemingly) petty about Kamala’s race case, I first cringed and then asked, “Well, is it true? Does it matter if Kamala considers herself black or not?”

I’ve thought about that for a while now and I’ve come to the conclusion that, yes, it does matter. And yes, Trump is right to bring it up.

It doesn’t matter in respect to race or fitness. This isn’t about whether or not a Black woman should be in the office of President. This is about identity. This is about honesty. This is about what kind of leader Vice President Harris will be.

Last week I wrote an article in which I gave the Harris/Walz ticket the moniker of “The Beyoncé Campaign.” I talked about how the unfounded rumors of a Beyoncé appearance at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) were symbolic of the empty promise of Kamala Harris.

But I think the symbolism of that Beyoncé-less final night goes far beyond the media’s typical terribleness. What happened (or didn’t happen, to be more precise) Thursday night is indicative of the entire Harris/Walz campaign. It was a shiny symbol of a presidential ticket that is all rumor and innuendo and absolutely no substance. 

She refuses interviews, dodges press conferences, and nearly a week after accepting her party’s nomination at the DNC, Harris’ website remains barren of any platform or policy details. No one knows anything about what she really believes and what she wants to do in office. Everyone is just guessing, piecing together rumors and random bits of information that happen to accidentally fall from her lips during public appearances.

Everything any Harris supporter points to as a positive for her campaign is really just projection.

It’s the same conundrum with her racial identity. Harris has no policy wins to run on, a lazy legislative reputation, a difficult professional reputation and doesn’t possess the oratory prowess needed to distract from all of those flaws. She’s coming out of a wildly unpopular administration. On top of it all, she’s being asked to jam a two-year campaign into two months. The Democrats have no other choice. They have to make race her main selling point and hope it’s enough.

So, if being a Black woman is the main crux of the Harris campaign - and given she still has not released a platform, it seems to be just that - then it absolutely matters if there is some question as to the authenticity of Harris’ racial status claims.

Trump’s point is that Harris never really identified as a Black woman before very recently. Critics says she was part of an HBCU and that’s proof enough of her identity claims, but even white people attend HBCUs.

Harris grew up in an Indian household. Her Jamaican father was never part of her family. Harris herself has refused to be definitive about her racial identity, and I suspect that is because it’s complicated, but also because there is more political capital in being black and the ambiguity allows her to ride the wake of racial politics. A 2019 profile in The Washington Post quotes Harris as saying she doesn’t “categorize herself” and describes her as being from a “culturally fluid” background.

She said she has not spent much time dwelling on how to categorize herself.

“So much so,” she said, “that when I first ran for office that was one of the things that I struggled with, which is that you are forced through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created.

“My point was: I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it,” she said.

Harris’s background in many ways embodies the culturally fluid, racially blended society that is second-nature in California’s Bay Area and is increasingly common across the United States.

She calls herself simply “an American,” and said she has been fully comfortable with her identity from an early age. She credits that largely to a Hindu immigrant single mom who adopted black culture and immersed her daughters in it.

Even Harris is vague about her racial identity and that’s totally fine. I think she put it well when she said, “I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it.” But if the most important piece of your argument to be the President of the United States is “I’m Black” then it absolutely matters whether or not that is a wholly descriptive and true statement.

There are no other truths or realities to cling to in this campaign. At the very least, she needs to be Black, because that’s what she’s selling us on.

So, yes, it matters that she’s been vague about her own racial identity. It matters that up until five minutes ago Harris largely ignored descriptions of her as African-American. It matters that her entire campaign is just a blank screen for others to project their wishes and hopes upon.

And it matters that Trump calls it out. I object to the description of him as obsessive about this topic. He’s mentioned it alongside the myriad of other problems in this election.

Don’t get distracted by the race angle or your fears of how the left will try to use Trump’s awkwardness as a bludgeon. Trump isn’t insulting Harris’ race, he’s rightly pointing out the ongoing ambiguity across her entire campaign. If she can’t even be clear about who she is (and perhaps even she doesn’t know the real answer to that) , how are we supposed to believe she’ll ever be clear about what she’ll do as the most powerful leader in the world.

It matters if Kamala Harris is “fake Black” because it matters if Kamala Harris is fake…and I think she’s a fake.