Why is Kamala referred to as a Black Woman?

[Vior]

Watched a doc on iplayer and it struck me that many commentators referred to Kamala as a black woman. It’s not just sloppiness as some of the black, democrat women participating did similar.

It intrigues me. Especially as a woman with a half Indian daughter. I think I would be pretty surprised if DD referred to herself as purely English or purely Indian. She can pass for both depending on tan.

I know the US has a much different view on race and assume it is based on that. Genuinely interested. Not rage baiting. Have googled the question and no answer has really emerged.

Genuine question - but why? Why do you not consider yourself mixed race? I am mixed race and think my white parent would be quite hurt if I totally erased that side of my identity.

This

@Shesshinysheila Yes that is quite likely it.

However, no white people see themselves in either of us. No white people would look at either of us and say that we were one of them even though you yourself were raised in their communities and culture.

The assumption is never that we are half white.

LOVE Ms Howard! But every now and again I hear her say something on Abbott and, in my head, I hear “SINGING does not pay the bills”. Sheryl Lee Ralph is an icon.

@YellowComb

My son is mixed race- on forms he ticks White British/Black African
He would never describe himself as white because he looks black - he had Afro hair although his skin tone varies throughout the year. He is much darker in the summer, but would never 'pass' for white. He also has an African name.
Rightly or wrongly, society perceives him as black, so that is what he has to work with.9

On the accent thing, I'm white as a milk bottle, have lived most of my life in the midlands but on returning 'home' I revert to Scouse somewhere between Runcorn bridge and Lime Street station.

@Vior I think it's up to your daughter how she identifies.
Personally I have an issue with equating English with white.
My son is English because he was born in England. English is his nationality, not his ethnicity.
How do you think Kamala should describe herself ?

Mainly due to the “one drop” rule often talked about in the US.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

She has ALWAYS called herself "Brown"
because she and her sister were raised in an Indian household after her parents divorced

Her father lives in DC. They do not talk much.

Her grandfather was a high level Indian diplomat.

I think it is a Trump thing your either white or your black. No space for anything in between.

this is racist nonsense and the moderators need to do a better job with these comments or shut this thread down

This post is, if I may say so, almost obscenely stupid. Why comment on the racial, ethnic, and political-legal identities of another country and fault them for not being just like your own?

US race law us a very serious subject with a tragic and violent history. The racial identity the state snd community assigned to you has nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with law, violence, and racism. Theories of race, the one drop rule, laws against “miscegenation,” laws preventing various non white people from acquiring citizenship or owning property or living in a given place were rife in the US right up through the 1960’s—there is an entire community of Sikh men who, forbidden to import their own eives or to marry white women—had to marry mexican women. The children of this community don’t intermarry with the south asian community that has subsequently come to the US because the two subcultures are not seen as compatible.

The point I am trying to make is that, to the posters who insist that Obama or Harris are “playing up” sn identity they don’t have “to get votes” Both of them were birn into a country that absolutely did not give them a free choices of identity. They were embraced by the black community—Harris famously went to an HBC —and for legsl and social purposes they have always been part of that community.

SINGING does not put food on the table.

Interesting US article from a few years ago on just this topic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/opinion/political-blackness-race.html

Except orange...

But why? Why is the black heritage the only one acknowledged? My friend has black/ white mixed race kids. Are they supposed to deny they are half white?

Behind a paywall unfortunately.

It's naive to think they won't go through life facing prejudice because of their black heritage, and that that won't shape them and their identities.

Your friend's children can identify however they want, but if they are growing up in the UK or the US they will likely be acutely aware of their blackness.

My children are mixed - white and Asian and they refer to themselves simply as mixed race. They are neither one nor the other. Though one would pass as 100% Indian and the other 100% white (thanks to low iron in teenage girl!)

I also read somewhere that he made a conscious decision to identify more wholly as black at a certain point of his career.

Where did you read that?

Nobody is saying that a person has to deny their heritage. People are allowed to describe themselves how they see fit.

But Kamala Harris describes herself as black and this is how she wants to be referred to which is her right due to her circumstances.

However, I come back to my same point, in the case of Obama and any other ethnicty that is mixed with white, you never see white people claim those people. (I didn’t exactly hear him referred to as the first half-white president by anyone) Yet those same people are up in arms when someone chooses to not align themselves with the part of their ethnicity that frequently excludes them.

I don't remember now.

I once saw a young woman make an embarrassingly ignorant racial comment. The women she was talking to rolled her eyes. The young woman looked hurt and then said in such a heartfelt way 'I know I'm ignorant but I don't want to be'.

Everyone should be allowed to ask questions and learn. The answers are often quite fluid, you need to take the lead from the person you're speaking to.

You mean her younger photos of her eg as a child you thought she was Mexican? I know a couple of Mexican and central/south American people and unless they’re tanned or brown, they’re white (maybe kind of olive skinned) with black straight or wavy/curly hair.

So they look nothing like Meghan Markle.

I haven’t erased the white side of my identity at all. On ethnicity forms, if I choose to complete them, I select the mixed race box, however, I look more black than white. My skin is brown so I am perceived by the majority of the population as a ‘person of colour’ - not that I particularly like that term. I don’t have any objection to the term Mixed race, but it is a fairly blanket term that could apply to any ethnicity. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Because her father is black. And because she therefore identifies as a Black woman.

What do you want her to refer to herself as? A "half-black woman"?

Out of pure interest, why do you use a capital B for black and a small w for white? I’ve seen this a few times and have wondered why this is.