Former President Donald Trump’s confusion about race could be hilarious, if it were not so pathetic.
He left a lot of listeners, including me, somewhat puzzled by his latest revelations on the touchy topic of race during an appearance last week before the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago.
Considering his long-running reputation for attacking members of the news media and offending people of color with views that are insensitive at best, he could have scored points simply by showing up.
But he couldn’t stop there. True to his pattern, he unleashed a string of outlandish or patently false statements at a faster pace than fact-checkers could keep up.
This was particularly true of his verbal jabs at the racial background of Vice President Kamala Harris, who was not present as he took questions from a panel of three Black female journalists. Most memorably, he falsely, yet boisterously, accused Harris of misrepresenting one of her most obvious characteristics, her racial background.
“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 … So I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black? I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t. Because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person.”
Ah, the audacity. At least, Trump said he would “respect either one,” yet he still lambasted Harris for allegedly passing off herself as “Black.”
It took moderator Rachel Scott of ABC News to cite some facts that Trump, among others, somehow had missed. Harris “has always identified as a Black woman,” Scott said, and “went to a historically Black college.”
Indeed, Harris graduated from historically Black Howard University, where she also was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a leading and historically African American sorority. Blackness is not a new thing for her.
But, to the former — and possibly future — president, you can be Indian or Black but apparently not both?
I found that apparent belief of his to be ironic at best, considering how Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, happens to be the father of three biracial — Indian American and white — children.
But, alas, as they say in the world of rock music, Trump is “playing the hits” again — and watching other people dance to it.
Remember how he launched his first presidential campaign after airing baseless suspicions about then-President Barack Obama’s birth certificate? That bogus issue gained far more airtime and traction than it deserved. Yet, the hits just keep on coming.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. may have had a dream that everyone will be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. Yet, a lot of people take longer to get the word than others do, especially in the world of politics.
And some of Trump’s MAGA supporters have been outspoken in their support for partisan assaults on Harris’ background.
“I don’t really care, most people don’t,” said Rep. Byron Donalds, a Black Republican from Florida, who reportedly was on Trump’s short list of potential running mates. “But if we’re going to be accurate, when Kamala Harris went into the United States Senate, it was (the Associated Press) that said she was the first Indian American United States senator. It was actually played up a lot.”
Not really. Rep. Donalds and Trump both cite an AP headline from when Harris became a U.S. senator that noted her Indian background and not her Black heritage. But that headline was written that way when she became the first Indian American U.S. senator. She was the second Black woman to serve in the Senate.
Wherever you may stand on the touchy topic of America’s fraught racial history, anyone who has lived in our country and national culture for very long knows better than to oversimplify our racial codes, customs and color consciousness. Over time, I have seen increasing evidence of the color card still being played, often by people who should know better. Yet, old customs die hard, as the old saying goes, especially in politics.
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