HOUSTON — Addressing a cavernous auditorium filled with thousands of Black women decked out in royal blue and gold — the colors of Sigma Gamma Rho, a historically Black sorority holding its biennial celebration in Houston on Wednesday — Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged the ugly, unhinged rant that former President Donald Trump delivered hours earlier at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention in Chicago.
During a panel discussion moderated by a trio of female reporters, Trump had questioned Harris’ race, suggesting she “turned” Black as a matter of political convenience.
Rachel Scott, a correspondent with ABC News, asked the former president about Republicans’ efforts to brand Harris, pejoratively, as a “DEI hire” — an smear intended to paint the vice president and former U.S. senator as someone who was picked for a job not for her skills or accomplishments, but because she ticks a specific demographic box.
Instead of distancing himself from the caricature, Trump launched an uglier attack, questioning whether Harris was Black at all. “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,” he said. “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris responded to Trump’s remarks about her race — one of a series of stunning exchanges he made during the controversial 34 minute interview — at Sigma Gamma Rho’s 60th International Biennial Boule.
“This afternoon, Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. And it was the same old show: the divisiveness, and the disrespect. And let me just say the American people deserve better.”
Harris went on: “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us — they are an essential source of our strength.”
Already, Trump’s campaign seems determined to capitalize on, rather than back away from, Trump’s remarks — a signal that the campaign thinks his racist, bad-faith attack on Harris will have a political benefit.
Just hours after his interview — before the former president arrived at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania — a Business Insider headline was projected on a screen at the rally that read: “California’s Kamala Harris becomes first Indian-American U.S. senator.” By then, Trump had already posted a video on Truth Social of Harris cooking with the actress Mindy Kaling, and talking about her South Asian heritage. He captioned it: “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” Trump did not revisit the comments on stage at the rally, but his lawyer Alina Habba tried, declaring awkwardly at one point: “Unlike you, Kamala, I know who my roots are, I know where I come from.”
Trump has a history with this type of attack: He milked bad faith “doubts” about Barack Obama’s birth certificate for years — a campaign that eventually laid the path for his 2016 presidential bid. On Wednesday, far-right Trump supporter Laura Loomer posted that she was sharing a copy of Harris’ birth certificate, writing that it “proves she is NOT BLACK.” She added: “Donald Trump is correct. Kamala Harris is NOT black and never has been.”
The attack on Harris originated years ago, promoted by the right-wing provocateur Ali Alexander, who organized the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Alexander tweeted in 2019: “Kamala Harris is implying she is descended from American Black Slaves. She’s not. She comes from Jamaican Slave Owners. That’s fine. She’s not an American Black. Period.” Donald Trump Jr. retweeted it at the time.
At a fundraiser in Maine, Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff — the target of recent faith-based attacks from Trump — dismissed the former president’s comments, calling them “a distraction.”
“We can’t get distracted by Hannibal Lecter,” Emhoff said, referring to Trump’s bizarre proclivity for the fictional cannibal. “Even the insults hurled at myself and my wife… that’s to distract us and get us talking about that.”
The Trump campaign is in desperate need of a distraction: After weeks of withering criticism of J.D. Vance, his vice presidential nominee, the Trump campaign must be grateful for any earned media opportunity that doesn’t involve questions about whether or not his vice presidential pick had sex with a couch, or revolve around his declaring “war” on broad swaths of the American electorate.
Vance, himself the father of three mixed-race children, laughed off Trump’s comments about Harris’ race at a rally in Arizona on Wednesday. “I thought it was hysterical,” Vance said. “I think he pointed out the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris.”
Harris is the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a breast cancer researcher who was born in India, and Donald Harris, an economist who was born in Jamaica. The couple met in Berkeley, California, and where they were both active in a legendary Black intellectual study group at U.C. Berkeley. Harris herself was born in Oakland, and went on to study at Howard University, a historically Black college, where she became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha — one of the “Divine Nine” historically Black sororities and fraternities.
She has spoken often about her Black heritage, including to the popular radio show the Breakfast Club in 2019. “I’m Black, and I’m proud of being Black,” she said. “I was born Black. I will die Black, and I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”