Trump and Campaign Double Down on Falsehood
At a Trump rally in Pennsylvania after his remarks at the NABJ convention, the campaign posted on a large video screen behind the stage the headline of a Nov. 9, 2016, AP story that Business Insider published, that read, “California’s Kamala Harris becomes first Indian-American US senator.”
That’s entirely accurate, of course. She was.
An AP story published the same day, Nov. 9, 2016, presents a more complete description, stating, “Harris will enter the chamber as the first Indian woman elected to a Senate seat and the second black woman, following Carol Moseley Braun, who served a single term after being elected in 1992.”
Similarly, when Harris was elected as San Francisco district attorney in December 2003, the Associated Press reported, “Harris, a former girlfriend and political protégé of Mayor Willie Brown, will be the first female district attorney in the city’s history and the first black to hold the office in California.” A month later, Jet magazine ran a story under the headline, “Kamala Harris is San Francisco’s First Black District Attorney.” Both stories were obtained from the news archives, LexisNexis.
After Trump made his comments, conservative commentator Laura Loomer posted on X a reprint of Harris’ birth certificate and wrongly claimed it proved Harris is “a liar” and that “Donald Trump is correct. Kamala Harris is NOT black and never has been.” Loomer noted, “Nowhere on her birth certificate does it say that she is BLACK OR AFRICAN.”
That last part is true. According to a copy of Harris’ birth certificate posted by the Mercury News in August 2020, Harris’ race is not recorded — because there is no box for it. The certificate notes that Harris’ mother, who was living in Berkeley, California, was born in India. Where the certificate form asks for the “color or race of mother,” it is marked “Caucasian.”
That’s not surprising. A 1995 document from the Office of Management and Budget titled “Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity” notes that in decennial censuses, “There have been many changes in the broad racial categories, the specific components of the categories, and whether data on ethnicity were collected. Asian Indians, for example, were counted as ‘Hindus’ in censuses from 1920 to 1940, as ‘White’ from 1950 to 1970, and as ‘Asians or Pacific Islanders’ in 1980 and 1990.” Harris’ birth certificate is from her birth year, 1964. She was born in Oakland.
Under the “color or race of father,” the certificate states, “Jamaican.” The form also notes that Harris’ father, Donald J. Harris, is a native of Jamaica. While the birth certificate makes no note of it, Donald Harris is Black.
In other words, Kamala Harris is both Indian American and Black.
Trump amplified Loomer’s bogus post by re-posting it on his social media platform. He also posted an old photo of Harris with Indian relatives in traditional Indian garb. Trump commented, “Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.”
Additionally, Trump posted a recent cooking video Harris made with Indian American actress Mindy Kaling. Trump commented, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!”
In the video, Kaling asks, “You are Indian?” to which Harris enthusiastically replies, “Yes, yes.”
“I don’t know that everybody knows that,” Kaling says. Moments later, when Kaling notes that they both have family from south India, Harris replies, “You look like the entire one-half of my family.” And that line is exactly the point. It is a part of her heritage from her mother’s side.
In a February 2019 interview with a morning radio show called “The Breakfast Club,” Harris addressed questions about the “legitimacy” of her blackness. “I think they don’t understand who Black people are,” she said. “Because if you do, if you walked on Hampton’s campus, or Howard’s campus or Morehouse, or Spelman or Fisk, you would have a much better appreciation for the diaspora, for the diversity, for the beauty in the diversity of who we are as Black people. So I’m not going to spend my time trying to educate people about who Black people are.”
In remarks at a convention for the Black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho, Harris addressed Trump’s claims at the NABJ event, saying “it was the same old show — the divisiveness and the disrespect.”
