Manipulation Machines

How disinformation campaigns suppress the Black vote

- Errin Haines

During the Democratic debates on June 27, Senator Kamala Harris had a standout moment. Former vice president Joe Biden, the front-runner, had recently made news for defending his work in the seventies with senators who advocated racial segregation, telling donors that, in those days, “At least there was some civility. We got things done.” Harris, the only Black woman in the field, seized an opportunity to call out Biden’s imperfect record on race, and focused on his history of opposition to busing that would integrate schools. “There was a little girl in California,” Harris said— her eyes closing for a moment—“who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day, and that little girl was me.” Facing Biden directly, she went on: “So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously; we have to act swiftly.”

Many people watching, Harris supporters or not, were moved by the sincerity of her message. Of course, the internet provided dissent. That evening, Ali Alexander, a right-wing provocateur, tweeted, “Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican. I’m so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself ) of our history. It’s disgusting.” Immediately, Alexander became part of a smear campaign. His tweet was reposted thousands of times and shared by Donald Trump Jr. to some 3.65 million followers with the line “Is this true? Wow.” (Trump later deleted the post.) It’s true that Harris is of Jamaican and Indian descent; she is also Black and a native citizen from Oakland, California.