Conservatives More Likely To See Vice President Harris as ‘White’ than Liberals

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United States on 2021-10-30 00:18Z by Steven

Conservatives More Likely To See Vice President Harris as ‘White’ than Liberals

CSUN Today
California State University, Northridge
2021-10-26

Media Contact: Carmen Ramos Chandler, Director of Media Relations

A study by CSUN researchers found that conservatives labeled now-Vice President Kamala Harris (above, with her husband Douglas Emhoff) as “white” much more often than liberals, who tended to categorize her as multiracial. Labeling Harris as “white” may be influenced by a desired to diminish the power of her biracial ancestry to attract voters, the researchers said.

As the fight for the White House heated up last year and Kamala Harris became the first woman of color on a major party ticket, California State University, Northridge researchers wondered if political ideology would influence how people perceived her biracial ancestry.

What they found surprised them. Conservatives labeled now-Vice President Harris — whose mother is South Asian and was born in India and father is Black and was born in Jamaica — as “white” much more often than liberals, who tended to categorize her as multiracial.

“There were some theories out there suggesting that conservatives were less willing to acknowledge that she is Black — she identifies herself as a Black woman and frequently references her Indian heritage — than liberals, who would be more willing to recognize her multiracial ancestry,” said CSUN psychology professor Debbie Ma

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