After Donald Trump told journalists on Wednesday that his presidential opponent Kamala Harris “turned Black” for political gain, Trump’s comments have impacted the way many multirace voters are thinking about the two candidates.
“She was only promoting Indian heritage,” the former president said during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.”
“Is she Indian or is she Black?” he asked.
She’s both.
Harris, whose mother was Indian and her father is Jamaican, would make history if she is elected president. She would be both the first female president and the first Asian American president.
Multiracial American voters say they have heard similar derogatory remarks about their identities their whole lives. Some identify with Harris’ politics more than others but, overall, they told NBC News that Trump’s comments will not go unnoticed.
I wouldn’t say that being racist is necessarily about the inability to think logically or rationally. It’s sometimes that, of course, but sometimes it’s because they just never tried to think about it. Their life experiences just never put them in that situation.
But most often, I think, it’s because they can think logically, have tried to think logically, but the conclusions would make them feel less superior and thus they encounter a mental block. In other words, it’s about insecurity, first and foremost.