It wasn't a debate, it was a disastrous interview, and no one in Donald Trump's party has asked him to withdraw from the presidential race, but they should.
The former president characterized Vice President Kamala Harris as a woman who cannot be trusted because of her mixed racial background during a livestreamed appearance in Chicago for the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists.
“[Kamala] “He was always of Indian descent and he was just promoting Indian descent,” Trump said of his likely opponent in the 2024 presidential election.
Harris’s mother is South Asian and her father is black. It’s still a lot for Trump to take in, though he tried in real time to weaponize this information for his first major performance since Harris became his likely rival in the presidential race.
“I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago when she became black and now she wants to be known as black. So I don’t know if she’s Indian or black,” he asked. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian from start to finish and all of a sudden she changed her attitude and became a black person. I think someone should look into that as well.”
What exactly needs to be investigated? And does this critical investigation require a DNA test, a lie detector, or both? What is it about mixed inheritance that is so difficult to understand?
Trump stopped short of using terms like “mixed race” or “impure,” but the message was clear: mixed-race and multiethnic people are rare, fickle anomalies and must choose an identity that can be trusted. Even so, their birthplace, citizenship and religious beliefs will be dissected and scrutinized by the birther movement he spearheaded against Barack Obama nearly a decade ago.
Of course, inciting racial hatred is nothing new for MAGA, but it was still surprising to hear it come out of the mouth of a presidential candidate on a national stage with such confidence and candor.
For those of us who grew up in “mixed” households, the demand that we stay in one lane is not new, but it is still absurd. Personally, I swing between outrage and disappointment that we are still having these kinds of mid-century conversations in 2024.
Explaining who or what you are to hostile interrogators (i.e. teachers, school bullies) is exhausting, especially when you're a child. It certainly was for me. I hoped the world would change over time for my son, who is Arab, Indian and white.
On Wednesday, casting Harris as the Other in front of a room full of Black journalists backfired. His attempt to sow doubt about Harris’s Blackness, in front of a predominantly Black audience, did not seem to win hearts or minds.
There were grumblings in the audience when he proclaimed that he was the best president for black people since Abraham Lincoln and when he accused ABC News' Rachel Scott (one of three interviewers on stage) of giving him a “very rude introduction.” Her tough opening questions about his criticism of black journalists, black prosecutors and communities in general were apparently “unpleasant.”
That kind of talk is a joy to the ears in the MAGA universe, where elected officials resurrect Jim Crow-era descriptions of “colored” and use terms like “DEI hiring” to discredit Harris. This latest smear suggests she was elected vice president not because of her accomplishments as California attorney general or U.S. senator, but because she meets some demographic requirements. But the GOP’s desperate scramble for a winning narrative against Harris isn’t bearing fruit yet — at least not in the same way the age factor was used against President Biden when he was in the race.
Still, Trump persisted with his “She Cannot Be Trusted” rhetoric via his Truth Social platform. “Crazy Kamala is saying she is Indian, not black,” he wrote. “This is a big deal. A complete lie.” Or maybe it’s that she is a threat to Trump’s world order.
Harris is the daughter of, wait for it, immigrantsHer father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian. She attended Howard University, a historically black university, and joined the historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. As a U.S. senator representing California, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Harris addressed Trump's attacks from where she was speaking Wednesday: the 60th Biennial International Boule of the historically African American sorority Sigma Gamma Rho.
“It was the same old show: division and disrespect,” Harris said. “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us, but are an essential source of our strength.”
Harris is right. Those of us of mixed descent already know this, even if Trump wants to present that truth as a weakness.
