Vice President Kamala Harris has been the target of more frequent attacks from former president Donald Trump, who claims she “happened to move Black” to gain political benefit. Trump’s most recent racially charged remarks, which aim to undermine his 2024 foe, are the latest in a line of offensive remarks. Before she entered the political world, Harris’s embracing of her cultural identity and heritage has always been a major part of her life.
Harris, born in Oakland, California, in 1964, is the princess of Afro-Jamaican Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan, who emigrated from India. The pair met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they engaged in civil rights activism, usually with fresh Kamala in tow. Donald Harris, then a professor emeritus at Stanford University, and Gopalan, who passed away in 2009 after making significant contributions to breast cancer research, raised their sons with a powerful sense of cultural confidence.
Gopalan continued to convey both her sons ‘ South Asian traditions and their Black identity after their marriage. In her 2019 memoir, The Principles We Hold, Harris recounts how her mother, conscious of political views, was determined that her sons would grow up as comfortable Black ladies. Gopalan’s work included visits to India and the use of Tamil in their home, helping Kamala and her younger girl Maya understand and appreciate their different backgrounds.
Harris was active in her neighborhood’s Black church as a child and was a just desegregated school’s predominately light student. Her speech on The Breakfast Club in 2019,” I’m Black, and I’m happy of being Black, and I was born Black, I may die Black”, reflects her long-standing devotion to her cultural identity.
Harris ‘ commitment to her Black history is further strengthened by her education options. She attended Howard University, a previously Black establishment, and joined Alpha Kappa Alpha, the college founded to help Black people. Her engagement included organizing South African apartheid protests.
Throughout her constitutional job, Harris continued to support her Black personality after Howard. Harris was constantly praised in the internet as a Black or African American president after serving as president of the Black Law Kids Association at UC Hastings College of the Law and then as the attorney general of California and the district attorney in San Francisco.
Trump’s problems, drawing comparisons to accusations faced by Barack Obama, are seen by some experts as a strategy to destroy Harris’s trust. Christopher Clark, a professor of social science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, suggests that Trump’s notes are a form of “race-baiting” intended to rally his foundation.
According to Teresa Wiltz, a writer for Politico, the legacy of slavery covers a wide range of activities and looks. She emphasizes that important Black figures in history, such as Frederick Douglass and Angela Davis, were likewise of mingled race, and Harris’s self-identification as Black should be respected.
Harris’s common life has always included a powerful assurance of her cultural identity, from her activism and career choices to her private declarations. Trump’s most recent comments appear to ignore the complexity of cultural identity and favor a false and divisive narrative.
