In her first news interview since the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris explained why she didn’t punch back when Trump accused her of having “just decided to be Black” for the election.

She said she wouldn’t “fall for that bait.” She contended that going down that path would have no end, and that he would next accuse her of “not being a woman;” would answering that accusation require “showing my vagina?”

Fair enough…we all know what a noxious being Donald Trump is—even his supporters seem to know it. But the result of the decision not to answer was to let stand a falsehood that had an actual, detrimental effect on the outcome of the election.

At least one young Black man told me that he did not trust Kamala Harris for the reason that she claimed to be Black when he believed her to be actually of entirely South Asian ancestry. He explained to me that her father is actually a South Asian immigrant to Jamaica—so not really Black, and therefore her (unbelieved) claim to be Black made her not trustworthy.

This was absolute news to me, so I allowed the accusation go uncontested in our conversation…but I had to look it up:

In fact, Kamala Harris’ father, Donald J Harris, is very much descended from Jamaican plantation slaves—to the extent that he reported that his grandmother had told him that she was descended from an Irish-born Jamaican plantation owner who born in the year of American Independence.

That sounds to me to be about as “legitimately” Black as anyone in America.