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.

But that's the point OP is making that if she sees herself as both a black woman and Indian woman why is she being constantly reported as black?

@Dweetfidilove Trump is not required to mentioned his heritage, as he's just accepted as a white man.

This is such a good point. Quite disturbing really.

I think I responded strongly to the imputation that Obama and Harris were running an “identity politics “ based campaign because Trump is running an overtly white supremacist campaign in which he fashion s himself the white defender of a white/Christian homeland. Why is Trump’s white identity not given the same scrutiny as Harris’s?

It’s interesting to me as the mother of a mixed child. I would be very surprised if my child referred to herself or was referred to by others as a white girl (my child is white passing most of the time)

@Vior My DC sees himself as white. Always has. He's half Asian. I told him he can identify whatever he feels most comfortable with. He is still happy to take part in the Asian cultural festivities so there's no internal racism going on, before someone jumps on that. He's very confident and has a strong sense of self.

Bold failure

She is Black in an American context? Is that so hard for you to grasp? American culture and politics views things differently.

Race is an American obsession. We import American ideas, but over here she’d be American and, if, for example, you substitute Wales for California, we’d say she was Welsh. I don’t know if describing yourself as Californian is a thing.

Presumably you describe yourself as British with some Nigerian heritage. Kids I teach refer to themselves as British, but with a grandparent / parent from xyz country. If they are from overseas they describe themselves as Nigerian, Ghanaian, Jamaican, Korean, Japanese, Mexican, Serbian… etc. They don’t routinely describe themselves black or white anything in between.

Because she is a black woman.

I don't agree. She isn't black or Indian. Race isn't a category. The problem is that people continue behaving as though it is.

WTF are you on about ?

YANBU. I'm mixed race. I don't say I'm White or Asian. I'm mixed. I'm not sure why lots of mixed race people claim to be one or the other. They're both.

Plenty of people refer to themselves as black, even if they have one parent of another race. It's not unusual. Obama always referred to himself as black because whenever he tried to hail a cab, the fact that his mother was white was irrelevant.

Thing is Indian is actually Caucasian! It is to do with features more than colour. If her mother had mixed with white then she could easily look Southern European origin, maybe South American or Mexican. That is the odd part about racial mixtures getting categorised, as more mixing is going on and ppl just cannot keep up eg ‘you are from UK so why do not you look English? The reply is because I am half/all from somewhere else but born in England’. Some people have 4 grandparents from different parts of the globe to each other now. People from homogeneous cultures tend to not grasp that the most.

I don't see that being mixed-race with one black parent makes you black. Black is a colour. Ms Harris seems to be light brown-cream i.e. not black.

@Tandora

What is difficult to understand? Race isn't a category. There is no gene which codes for 'race'. It has no biological basis.

Say what now?

Race is totally made up: a European colonialist construct developed to murder, dispossess, deprive people of basic human rights, discriminate and prejudge.

As such, it entangles people in these sort of debates: what ‘race’ are they? When in actual fact people perceived to be of a certain ‘race’ (e.g. Black African) are often more different from each other (e.g. in terms of DNA) that they are to people of a different ‘race’ (e.g. White European).

IMHO people are entitled to identify as any ‘race’ (White, Black, Brown, Mixed etc) or none, they prefer. But I’d like to live in a world where we no longer refer to race, other than to fight racism.

I much prefer ethnicity, which relates better to region (rather than colonialist or existing country) of family origin, language, religion and culture.

So race and racism is a colonial fabrication made up by those awful white men and not something that's been around since the dawn of humanity, as evidenced by the old testament.

Got it. Cool. Thanks for the history lesson.

Christ you do talk some rubbish.
India is a sub-continent. There are many ethnicities in India, not just one people.
I'm absolutely perplexed how this beautiful could be called Caucasian in any sense of the word.

By race baiting - a very slow clap for you. If you didn’t realise you were race baiting I would suggest adding that to your Google search list lest you do it again IRL.

Obama is mixed race but defines himself as black. Kamala Harris does the same.

Lots of biracial people describe themselves as biracial.

Shock horror - biracial people have the privilege of defining their ethnicity without having to explain themselves. If your daughter chooses to describe herself as Indian I strongly suggest you don’t subject her to the faux naïveté you are choosing to display here.

Who died and made you queen of how other people who have nothing to do with you should define themselves?

There is no such thing as half black in America. If you're half black you're black. it's a political category as much as a physical and social one. Google one drop laws and that will explain.

I live in the US and I can assure you the average American sees her as half black half Indian. The media and the curated politics push the she's black narrative. It's not that hard to grasp.

Yup she is whole or part caucasoid.

In your sense of the word Caucasian is white, but that is not what it is. If you go to an editor and without wanting to offend anyone paint her skin peachy, eye colour and hair colour optional, you’ll have a white child from the same caucasoid family.