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Trump attacked Kamala Harris’ ethnicity while at a conference for Black journalists. Right-wing media have spent years doing the same.

Written by Lis Power & John Whitehouse

Research contributions from Media Matters Staff

Published

In an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump questioned likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ ethnicity, saying: “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?”

As Time notes, Trump's claim is false. Harris is of Jamaican descent on her paternal side and Indian descent on her maternal side. Right-wing media have long railed at her over her ethnicity, suggesting that she might not really be Black, a smear previously aimed at former President Barack Obama.

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  • Donald Trump attacks Kamala Harris’ ethnicity at NABJ

  • Trump accuses Vice President Harris of “turn[ing] Black"

    “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 happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.” [CNN, 7/31/24]

    From the July 31, 2024, interview with former President Donald Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, streamed on CNN

  • Following Harris’ ascension to the top of the ticket, conservative media figures have repeatedly attacked her ethnicity

  • The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles: “Kamala Harris, though she is now presenting herself as, you know, Malcolm X … she’s half Indian and then half Afro Caribbean, so she really doesn’t have any link to the African American culture, whatsoever”

    As the segment devolved into mock Indian and Jamaican accents, Knowles claimed that Harris “speaks like an ordinary American” but “put on the accent, the caricature and stereotypical accent of American Black vernacular,” calling it “completely disingenuous,” and saying “she has no connection to that whatsoever.” [The Daily Wire, The Michael Knowles Show, 7/31/24]

  • “Stop the Steal” leader Ali Alexander: “Barack Obama and Kamala Harris are seen as these Black people, and neither one of them is Black”

    Discussing whether Obama would endorse Harris, Alexander claimed “neither one of them is Black” and added that some on the right “are bigots, but they’re not bigots in like the traditional way.” [Online stream, 7/31/24]

  • Trump’s “meme team” ally Brenden Dilley said Harris “is completely full of shit,” and claims to be different ethnicities depending on who she is around

    [The Dilley Show, 7/24/24]

  • On Newsmax, guest Chris Kohls mispronounced Harris’ first name and questioned, “Is she Black? Is she Indian? Nobody knows.”

    Host Sebastian Gorka replied that it’s not racist to mispronounce Harris’ name if we “work out how her slave-owning Jamaican ancestors pronounced that name.” [Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 7/22/24]

  • Newsmax guest Joel Gilbert said Harris “has no common experiences with Black Americans”

    Gilbert, author of a book that speculates Michelle Obama will run for president, continued, ‘She doesn't even bring the African American vote that they've hemorrhaged to Donald Trump because she's not African American. Her mother is from India. Her father's from Jamaica. She grew up in Canada, and she married a white Jewish guy.” [Newsmax, Greg Kelly Reports, 7/21/24]

  • YourVoice America's Bill Mitchell: “Kamala Harris never ran as a black woman until 2020"

    [Twitter/X, 7/22/24]

  • The attacks on Harris date back years and mirror similar right-wing attacks on former President Obama

  • Rush Limbaugh: “Explain to me how Kamala Harris is an African American? Her father's Jamaican and her mother is Indian. How does that equal African American? Same thing with Barack Obama.”

    [Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, 7/22/19]

  • Discussing Harris’ ethnicity on BlazeTV, Fox host Mark Levin commented that she “is not an African American.”

    [BlazeTV, LevinTV, 8/11/20]

  • On Fox News, Dinesh D’Souza, who has pushed election conspiracy theories, said Harris shouldn't be considered “African American” because she “is from the legacy of” a prominent Jamaican slave owner

    D’Souza erroneously claimed that “there’s been this effort in the Democratic Party and on the left to eradicate all connections to the slave plantation” from which Harris’ family purportedly descended, adding, “The point I'm trying to make is that Kamala Harris seems to be descended less from the legacy of, let's say, Frederick Douglass, than she is from the legacy of the plantation itself.” [Fox News,The Ingraham Angle, 8/11/20]

  • Pro-Trump social media figures Diamond and Silk claimed that Harris “is not even Black” while discussing her family heritage

    Lynnette Hardaway, known online as “Diamond,” also seemed not to know that India is part of Asia, adding, “Somebody claimed that she was Asian American and then they are saying she's Indian. I don't know what she is.” [WMAL, Mornings on the Mall, 8/12/20]