With here debate attention?…..Harris is now gonna the target for Right leaners….
A new iteration of Donald Trump’s racist and fallacious “birtherism” attack on former President Barack Obama is suddenly surging on social media, this time against Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
The apparently bot-aided onslaught is claiming the senator doesn’t represent U.S. blacks because her father was born in Jamaica. Harris, an American of both Jamaican and Indian descent, was born in Oakland, California.
Donald Trump Jr. retweeted the original attack but later deleted it. Meanwhile, the president’s former campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson tried to discredit Harris another way, indicating she is not African enough to run as a minority presidential candidate. She tweeted that “while Obama is actually African-American — Harris is not,” even though people of African descent have lived in Jamaica for centuries.
The slam appeared Thursday night shortly after the Democratic presidential debate, where Harris had powerfully raised her own experiences being bused as a child in California to battle school desegregation
The attack appeared to be launched by a self-described “black activist” identifying himself as “Ali Alexander” on an unverified Twitter account. He claimed in a video and tweet that Harris cannot represent the black experience in America because she has “no ancestors who suffered American Slavery, the Civil War, nor Jim Crow.”
Alexander is actually a far-right political operative and conspiracy theorist Ali Akbar, or Ali Abdul Razaq Akbar, whom Politico profiled last year as an “increasingly prominent pro-Trump supporter.” On the eve of the 2016 election, Robert Mercer donated $60,000 to a PAC that Alexander advises, Politico reported…..
After a relatively tiny amount of basic study, I learned that there has long been a huge interchange of black leaders and ideas between the U.S., Africa and the Caribbean, just as there has been for African-based music. For just two examples Republican hero Colin Powell’s parents (like Kamala Harris’ father) were born in Jamaca, while Stokely Carmichael of SNCC, Black Power and black nationalism was born in Trinidad.
Can you imagine Republicans attacking Colin Powell as not “really” being Black?
No….
Or, more pertinently, not being American enough to qualify for the Presidency ?
Sowing the seeds of doubt?
Didn’t work the last time though….
james regularly refers to Obama as “biracial”, while while technically accurate, misses the reality of his life and indentity.
Frankly, I do not see how this is any different.
Actually ?
I refer to Barack Obama as mixed…honouring his mother….
Well, that’s even worse then in my view. Sorry.
Actually, Jack’s rhetorical question was more pertinent to this year’s accusation that Kamala Harris isn’t “really” black. I was thinking of the birther attacks on Barack Obama 11 years ago: that he wasn’t really a naturally-born American.
And the suggestion that the families of black immigrants to the U.S. didn’t share the African-American experience of slavery is basically absurd, anyway. Their ancestors didn’t come to the West Indies as visitors or job-seekers — they, came no more willingly, as slaves, often in the same triangular trade (slaves > sugar cane > molasses > rum) as the ancestors of Ali Alexander.
The little I’ve read about slavery in Jamaica suggests that it was just as brutal as Southern U.S. slavery, if not more so. Slavery in Jamaica became illegal in 1833, only 30 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.
I would not compare the families that immigrated to the U.S. from the Caribbean in the 20th Century to the experience of chattel slavery.
I don’t understand you, Corey (or maybe you don’t undetstand me).
What’s the difference between a chattel slave growing and harvesting sugar or tobacco in Jamaica or Trinidad-Tobago and a chattel slave growing and harvesting sugar or tobacco in the Southern U.S. ??
If we are talking about the parents of Colin Powell coming to America voluntarily (or Harris or Obama’s father for that matter), a comparison cannot be made to those who were brought against their will. That’s what I was saying.
But did their ancestors come to Jamaica voluntarily ?
Wiki says immigrants…..
I didn’t ask whether Colin Powell’s parents came to the U.S. as voluntary immigrants, since I assume they did.
But since (I hope) no living Afro-American, nor even (with minuscule exceptions for extraordinary longevity) his or her parents experienced slavery, the (rather artificial) comparison is being made between those ancestors who suffered chattel slavery in the U.S. and those who suffered it in the British West Indies. Since slavery in Jamaica was at least as harsh and brutal as slavery in the Southern U.S., I can’t quite see how the descendants of West Indian slaves would be unable to understand or empathize with the experience of the descendants of slaves in the U.S.
NO u didn’t….
You said ancestor’s…
Ur right….
That comes across as a weird right-wingish argument that minimizes the U.S. legacy of slavery. I know you don’t intend it that way, but it’s way too esoteric.
I don’t know the answer to that but it has no relevance in discussing American politics and the “slavery” matter.
It would be like those of us who have Jewish roots saying that because our ancestors were slaves in Egypt, that we have the same claim as descendants of African slaves brought to America.
No, it wouldn’t be like that, Corey.
Legal (as opposed to de facto) slavery ended in Jamaica only 30 years (about one generation) before it ended in the U.S.
She’s not running for President of Jamaica (or India). None of that should have any relevance.
However distasteful racial criticism of Harris is, it is also not in line with the “birther” argument.
What this sounds like is the slimy DJT Jr retweeted some black conservative account saying she isn’t black enough to call herself black.
That’s a lousy thing to say but it is not the same thing as some incidents being alleged.
ANYTHING to look down ur nose at someone…
Which only come from someone small minded…
I’ve heard conservatives and liberals say this about Colin Powell over the years, i.e, that he is not fit to speak about the experience of black slaves in America and their descendants. It’s also been said of course about Obama and will be said of Harris as well.
And, heaven forbid !, Colin Powell is an Episcopalian [Anglican] !! As were his parents and as are many Christians in the formerly British West Indies.
[ In fact, African-Americans, of whatever ancestry, have become one of the mainstays of the Protestant Episcopal Church’s congregations and leadership. I read or heard once that many are attracted by the combination of Protestant theology with a colourful, musical liturgy derived from the Roman Catholic mass. ]
Colin Powell parents where a mix of Jamaican and Scottish….
It’s gonna be a rough election night for CG.
Plainly he can’t stomach any of the Democratic candidates with a realistic chance of winning the nomination.
His fantasy of some third party independent campaign by any prominent conservative is going nowhere, even if he refuses to concede that.
He claimed that last election he was secretly rooting for a Hillary victory.It is almost impossible to see him rooting for any of the Democrats.
Soooooooo…
Four More Years!
We Trump leaves gonna be a rough time for GOPer’s , Media and Trump himself….
My prediction?
Trump loses next November?
Gonna be people dancing in the streets like they won the World Series!...
I can somewhat relate as I cast a protest vote for a third party candidate I knew had no chance at winning in 2000.
I quickly regretted that vote.
We can’t afford that next year
i hope the ‘Progressives’ get the message…
I hope everyone gets the message