Janet Jackson, Kamala Harris, and Questions of Race

By Janis Prince Inniss 

Sociologically speaking,  there are lots of interesting aspects of the Janet Jackson PR fiasco. In case you missed it, the international superstar caused quite a stir recently. In a long and wide-ranging interview published by The Guardian on Saturday, when asked for her opinion on the upcoming U.S. presidential election and the possibility of the country’s first Black female president, Kamala Harris, Jackson said: “Well, you know what they supposedly said?...She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”

Charitably, this may be the best example of how the ultra-rich live dramatically different lives than the rest of us. Jackson seemed to suggest that she was told by those around her that this was the case, stating, “That’s what I heard…That’s what I was told.”

As The Guardian journalist notes, “people who are most vocal in questioning the facts of Harris’s identity tend to be hardcore QAnon-adjacent, Trump-loving conspiracy theorists.” This questioning was also on display recently when presidential hopeful, Donald Trump caused a stir at the National Association of Black Journalists conference when he lied about Harris’s racial identification claiming:

She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. 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. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?

Vice President Harris complicates the way race is viewed in the U.S. Like many other mixed race or so-called racially ambiguous people, her very existence challenges the notion that race is as clear cut as we like to imagine—even as onlookers.

It was not until 2000 that people like her in the U.S. could choose to identify as multiracial in the census, regardless of how they personally identified. This grows out of the “one drop” rule which decreed that anyone with even “one drop” of Black blood is deemed Black—at a time of chattel slavery, and later outgrowth institutions such as Jim Crow—a way to minimize the number of people who could claim to be human.

This discussion of the “one drop” rule might sound old-fashioned, but it is the basis for challenging the Vice President’s race. Note that Harris self-identifies as Black, although she talks about being raised by her Indian mother; she also seems to identify culturally with both her Black and Indian heritages, making dosas—Indian food—with Mindy Kaling, for example.

The Guardian writer offered Jackson that Harris is both Indian and Black, to which Jackson said: “Her father’s white. That’s what I was told...I was told that they discovered her father was white.” This is an inversion of the “one-drop” rule: “One drop” of another (non-Black) race’s blood, renders one non-Black.

Jackson claimed initially that Harris was Indian. Then she adds incorrectly that Harris’ father was White – all adding up to “She’s not Black.”  Trump questions which of the two “options” Harris is: “Is she Indian or is she Black?” while also suggesting that Harris is not (legitimately) black--“she happened to turn Black.”

Many of the news outlets reporting the Jackson story, in an apparent attempt to correct Jackson and others state some version of “Harris’s father is Jamaican”(see for here example). The Guardian author, in fact states: “It’s well known that Harris’s father is a Jamaican economist, a Stanford professor who split from her Indian mother when she was five.”  

The conclusion from these writings is that being Jamaican is the same as being Black—or at least should be understood to equate to being Black. The vast majority of Jamaicans are Black, but the country is home to Chinese,  Indians, and Whites as well. The conflation of nationality with race leads us to ask: What is race?

When you look at someone aren’t you sure you can decipher their race? Do you ever feel confused about someone’s race? If you answered yes to the second question, my bet is that this is a minority of the time.

Most of us have markers that we use to decide what race someone is: skin color, hair texture, facial features among the most common “tells.” Scientifically speaking though, the race question is more complex. Genetically, there is nothing that separates us neatly along racial lines.

Yet, race is a salient factor of life in the United States; it is tied to differential outcomes in many areas of life including life expectancy, maternal health, health, the criminal justice system, education, and wealth. There is also a close relationship between race and politics in the U.S.: African Americans almost uniformly vote for Democratic party candidates, large blocks of other non-white voters also vote for Democrats, while Whites are far more likely to vote for Republican Party candidates. As close as we are to Election Day, this might be why it matters to presidential candidate Trump whether Vice President Harris is or is not Black, and why Jackson thought it relevant to say what she heard.

As for nationality and race, would you say that Donald Trump is American, as a short-handed way of saying that he is White? How else do we conflate nationality and race?

Comments

[papa louie]

The Janet Jackson PR incident reveals the complexities and biases surrounding racial identity in America, particularly regarding Kamala Harris's mixed heritage. It highlights how societal perceptions and political implications intertwine, challenging the notion of clear racial categories.