Janet Jackson Joins Viral Kamala Harris Conspiracy Theory, Alleges She Isn’t Black
Janet Jackson has recently made remarks about Vice President Kamala Harris’s race that have proven false. Speaking with The Guardian, Jackson who is now 58 years old, insinuated that Harris only has Indian lineage, hence, she would not become the first Black woman to become President if she gets elected.
All these opinions are within the boundaries of conspiracy theories that some time ago were promoted by the representatives of the right-wing politicians including Donald Trump.
In the interview, one of the issues brought up to the Grammy-winning singer was Harris’s chances of making history by becoming America’s first female Black president. While discussing Harris’ ethnicity, Jackson quickly remarked, as she told the British news outlet, “She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”
This seemed to irk the interviewer, Nosheen Iqbal, but Jackson maintained that Harris’s paternal ancestry is ‘White’ even though it is incorrect. She even confessed that she did not follow recent news. She maintained, “I was told that they discovered her father was White.” When asked, Janet Jackson did not seem sure whether the country was ready to have a woman of color at the helm of the state. She stated that whoever wins the elections, either way, is going to be “mayhem.”
As opposed to what Jackson argues, 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 U.S. for his education at the University of California- Berkeley in Economics. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan also went to Berkeley from India and married Donald there. Harris has never claimed otherwise and those who have tried to present her otherwise have failed, as to be both South Asian and Black.
Donald Trump, 78, spread misinformation regarding Harris’ race by making false speculations at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention held in Chicago. He said, “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting the Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black, until several 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?”
Harris went to Howard University, one of the most popular historically black colleges in the U.S. This is where she came to appreciate her biological heritage as a Black woman. Likewise in her memoir The Truths We Hold (2019), she elaborated on her growing up as a Black woman reflecting on her mother about the challenges associated with raising two Black daughters in America. The White House biography of Harris also mentions that she was the first female Vice President of America, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to hold that position.
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