{"id":64383,"date":"2024-08-03T20:11:58","date_gmt":"2024-08-03T20:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64383"},"modified":"2024-08-03T20:11:59","modified_gmt":"2024-08-03T20:11:59","slug":"why-kamala-harris-biracial-identity-upsets-donald-trump-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64383","title":{"rendered":"Why Kamala Harris\u2019 biracial identity upsets Donald Trump so much"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/trump-interview-kamala-harris-black-indian-nabj-rcna164736\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Why Kamala Harris\u2019 biracial identity upsets Donald Trump so much<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MSNBC<\/a><br \/>\n2024-08-01<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/scholars.duke.edu\/person\/sarah.gaither\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Sarah E. Gaither<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience<br \/>\n<em>Duke University, Durham, North Carolina<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/as.tufts.edu\/psychology\/people\/faculty\/sam-sommers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Samuel R. Sommers<\/strong><\/a>, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology<br \/>\n<em>Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a4awN8AcqZo?si=UAVs6_DBGf1F5DZ9\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Acknowledging the existence of multiracial identities completely scrambles Trump\u2019s stereotypes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Early in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/the-reidout\/reidout-blog\/nabj-trump-interview-panel-chicago-rcna164300\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump\u2019s meltdown<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/nabj-event-trump-lights-outreach-black-voters-fire-rcna164640\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this week\u2019s National Association of Black Journalists convention<\/a>, the former president offered unsolicited commentary on the racial identity of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kamala_Harris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a>, who has an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. \u201cShe was Indian all the way,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/deadline-white-house\/watch\/-epic-meltdown-donald-trump-has-disastrous-interview-in-chicago-at-the-nabj-conference-216112197688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Trump said of his presumptive opponent<\/a>, \u201cand then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person. Somebody should look into that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is a multitude of problems with Trump\u2019s comments, from his presumption that he has the expertise and jurisdiction to judge someone else\u2019s identity to his argument that Harris lacks the racial bona fides to merit the Black audience members\u2019 allegiance. But the former president\u2019s ramble offers another important conclusion: Trump simply doesn\u2019t understand race. When Trump asks for somebody to \u201clook into that,\u201d the truth is that for years <a href=\"https:\/\/spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/j.1540-4560.2008.01585.x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">researchers <em>have<\/em> looked into that<\/a>. What they\u2019ve found is that overly simplified perspectives on race like Trump\u2019s are not only misplaced, but they are counterproductive and dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>Scholars of race have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.annualreviews.org\/content\/journals\/10.1146\/annurev-psych-010213-115115\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">long argued<\/a>, and demonstrated, that race is a socially constructed category that still has <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/000312249906400609\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">very real outcomes<\/a>. We, as members of society, constantly construct, deconstruct and reconstruct what race means.<\/p>\n<p>Even the basics of how race is measured in America have evolved over time. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/social-trends\/2015\/06\/11\/chapter-1-race-and-multiracial-americans-in-the-u-s-census\/#:~:text=The%20first%20census%20in%201790,were%20included%20in%20subsequent%20counts.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1850 U.S. census was the first<\/a> to acknowledge people of multiracial descent, with the category \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=451\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mulatto<\/a>\u201d used as a way to exclude them from having full political rights. Not until <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.census.gov\/library\/publications\/decennial\/2000\/briefs\/c2kbr01-06.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the 2000 census<\/a> were multiracial Americans able to formally mark more than one racial identity. In fact, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/stories\/2021\/08\/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">multiracial population is the fastest growing racial group<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">United States<\/a>, with a 276% increase between 2010 and 2020&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/trump-interview-kamala-harris-black-indian-nabj-rcna164736\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acknowledging the existence of multiracial identities completely scrambles Trump\u2019s stereotypes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,8,26,23674,20],"tags":[21057,19040,28247,19041,2684,33854,279,13298,11816,28038,9692],"class_list":["post-64383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-donald-trump","tag-kamala-d-harris","tag-kamala-devi-harris","tag-kamala-harris","tag-msnbc","tag-sam-sommers","tag-samuel-r-sommers","tag-samuel-sommers","tag-sarah-e-gaither","tag-sarah-elizabeth-gaither","tag-sarah-gaither"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64385,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64383\/revisions\/64385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}