Singer Janet Jackson apologized through a representative for claiming Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Black, is “not Black.”
“She’s not Black,” said Jackson, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper published Saturday. “That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian. Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”
Harris, of course, is not half-white and is very much Black. Her father is Donald Harris, a Jamaican-American economist who was the first Black scholar to receive a tenured position at Stanford’s economics department.
Harris, who graduated from leading historically Black university Howard, has frequently spoken about her Black identity in politics. She also once joked, when asked if she’d ever smoked marijuana, “Half my family’s from Jamaica, are you kidding me?”
She is also Indian. Her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a medical scientist who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was originally from Chennai.
A spokesperson for Jackson told BuzzFeed her comments were “based on misinformation.”
“She deeply respects Vice President Kamala Harris and her accomplishments as a Black and Indian woman,” the spokesperson added. “Janet apologizes for any confusion caused and acknowledges the importance of accurate representation in public discourse. We appreciate the opportunity to address this and will remain committed to promoting unity.”
Jackson’s rep didn’t explain how that information came to her.
Former president Donald Trump—Harris’ opponent in this year’s presidential election—has polluted the public conversation about Harris’ race, making false claims that Harris misled voters about her background
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump told the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago last month. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
At least Janet Jackson now knows the answer is “both.”
