Janet Jackson has become a symbol of the dangers that can occur when misinformation and disinformation is allowed to go unchecked.
During a recent interview with The Guardian, Jackson repeated a false statement about that continues to be perpetuated about VP Kamala Harris’ race.
“She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian,” Jackson said. “Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days.”
Harris has always identified as a Black and Indian American. Her father, Donald Harris, an economist and former Stanford professor, is Afro Jamaican. Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a biomedical scientist, was from India.
The question surrounding Harris’ race was once just fodder for uninformed social media users. That’s until Donald Trump used his old racist playbook to question Harris’ racial identity.
During his controversial appearance at the 2024 NABJ, Trump lied about Harris’ race while in a room full of Black journalists.
“She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she turned Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Trump used a similar racist tactic years ago when he questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship, seeking a way to discredit Obama’s historic rise to become the first Black American President. Although it was proven that Trump lied, he was able to galvanize like-minded racists and jumpstart his political career.
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