How dare Trump think he gets to decide if Harris can call herself Black or Indian

"Yet again, shots have been fired at Donald Trump – this time, over his comments about Kamala Harris’s racial heritage. On Wednesday, Trump bewildered an audience of Black journalists in Chicago by telling them that the Kamala Harris he claims to have known for several years was “Indian all the way” before, “all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went… she became a Black person”.

- AVA VIDAL

It won’t come as a massive surprise to anyone that race is one of those topics that, every time Trump brings it up, he inserts his great big clodhoppers into his mouth. And, once again, by suggesting that Harris “only recently” changed her identity and became a Black woman, he has got this all so, so wrong. But, in fairness to the Orange Peril, he is not the only one.

There has been much debate in the US about the Democrats’ presumptive presidential candidate and her heritage precisely because it is not African-American. (One might hope that, postBarack Obama, the world would be able to cope with a White House candidate of dual heritage, but here we are.)

Unlike former president Obama – who at least had a white American mother and grandparents who raised him – Harris has no direct American heritage whatsoever. Her mother hails from Chennai (formerly Madras) in India, while her father immigrated to the United States from Jamaica.

Her parents divorced when she was very young, and she was raised mainly by her sari-wearing mother in what many describe as a traditionally Indian upbringing. But the fact is, it doesn’t only matter what was going on at home, it also matters how society views her – which is why her mother raised her to identify as Black. And this is where it gets complicated. Especially for her Republican opponents.

Now, people like me have been known to get upset when strangers ask the loaded question: “Where are you from?” Because I know if I say London, they will only become frustrated and follow up with: “No, where are you really from?” But we need to spare a thought for people of mixed heritage, such as my oldest nephew, who simply get asked: “What are you?”