Janet Jackson: Kamala’s Not Black

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I’ve been among those who have never quite understood the entire brouhaha that has erupted this summer over the question of Kamala Harris’ racial profile. I cringe whenever I hear Donald Trump bring it up instead of remaining on topic and focusing on policy differences between his first term and the Biden/Harris administration. Yet somehow the question of Harris’ racial background keeps rising up from the grave like the ghost of Halloweens past. This contagion has spread beyond the two campaign organizations. For reasons I can only begin to imagine, pop singer Janet Jackson decided to weigh in on the “issue” this weekend during an interview that she did with The Guardian. Rather than attempting any sort of nuance, the singer came out and flatly declared that “she’s not black.” Perhaps sensing that she might be getting out over her skis a bit, she then attempted to “clarify” what she meant and where she had come across this shocking information, but by that point, she appeared to be trying to bail out her boat with a large hole in her bucket. (Page Six)

Janet Jackson is being called “irrelevant” and a “leech” after she questioned Kamala Harris’ race in an interview with the Guardian published on Saturday.

“She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian,” the “That’s The Way Love Goes” hitmaker, 58, said during a chat about “the State of the Union.”

“Her father’s white. That’s what I was told,” she went on.

“I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”

Let’s start with what she heard and where she allegedly heard it. In addition to being “not black,” Jackson also “heard” that she’s Indian. Fair enough, I suppose. Harris hasn’t exactly made a secret of her ancestry. In fact, some might argue that she’s used that as a political stepping stone. Jackson then went on to point out that Harris’ father is white. Or at least, “that’s what I was told.”

Who was this mystical insider who provided this shocking information to Janet Jackson and where did they get their information? She admitted that she “hadn’t watched the news in a few days” but she “was told” that it had been “discovered” that her father is white. Perhaps the most shocking part of this story is the fact that there was someone left in the country who hadn’t heard about this debate. Granted, she might be blamed for a bit of obfuscation on her campaign website where she is listed as the “first Black American, and first South Asian American to serve as vice president.

Harris’ mother was born in India. Her father was born in Jamaica. There are pictures out there of both parents at various ages. You can see one of them here. Granted, her father may be a bit lighter-skinned than some native Jamaicans, but he also doesn’t look particularly “white” in the classic sense. At this point, however, that’s true of most population centers around the world. There isn’t a lot of “racial purity” in the way that there was before mankind seriously moved into international travel and migration patterns. This is particularly true for racial features caused by recessive genes. Most of the humans with natural red hair were originally limited to the northwestern European islands. We’re not facing a red-head extinction, but less than 2% of the current population exhibits that trait.

None of this is really the point, however. Who cares how candidates choose to identify their racial profile? All that should really matter are their policies and the results they produce. Or at least I would have thought so until an entertainer of Janet Jackson’s caliber decided to dive into the debate. Are there really that many people who would have voted for Harris otherwise who will change their vote at the last minute because of the Veep being “insufficiently black?” Perhaps it’s just me, but doesn’t that sound kind of… racist?