On July 31, former president Donald Trump addressed the National Association for Black Journalists convention in Chicago. Responding to the three interviewers on stage with  wildly offensive and nonsensical statements, Trump chose to wade into the waters of mixed-race discourse by talking about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. 

“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 crowed to a stunned audience of convention attendees. “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

His remark highlighted a common experience that mixed-race people, and mixed-race politicians in particular, face as they navigate public life — the illegitimate questioning of one’s identity.

As stories about Harris’ cultural heritage infiltrate the news cycle, we must avoid the trap of invoking mainstream racist tropes of mixed-race people in the United States. It will be tempting to get caught up in the optimistic symbolism of Harris’ historic candidacy, or imagine how Harris may struggle with her Black and South Asian heritage. But narratives like these not only distract from what she brings to the table as a policy maker and savvy politico, but reify White supremacy in ways that run counter to the antiracist future many of us long for. 

For the last decade, I’ve been studying politicians who are multiracial or have mixed ancestry, and I’m now writing a book about them. Since Harris ran for California Attorney General, I’ve followed her career. Like her, I’m from the San Francisco East Bay Area. I’m also a child of an Asian immigrant and have mixed parentage. Additionally, I am deeply familiar with the casual ways that society talks about mixed-race people — the supposedly good and the objectively bad.

I grew up constantly being told I didn’t look Filipina by my Filipino American peers, and yet when non-Filipino people find out I am, I suddenly become Filipina and frequently hear about people’s Filipino best friends, uncles, and ex-girlfriends — especially from men. 

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the number of individuals who identify with two or more racial categories has grown from about 3% in 2010 to about 10% of the general population — or about 34 million people. That’s more than the number of people living in Texas. This population might identify any number of ways: with multiple categories, just one, or even an amalgamation of identities, such as Mexipinos, who are both Mexican and Filipino. For some mixed-race people, identity is situational, as individuals might play up or play down aspects of their heritage according to the social context. 

Current estimates of the number of mixed-race politicians in the United States are hard to come by, but their broad public visibility in examples like Harris, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Tennessee state representative Justin Jones is a reflection of the rapid growth of this demographic.

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth. Credit: United States Congress
Tennessee state representative Justin Jones. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Harris’ background has become part of her public persona on a national stage. Take her speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, for instance. In it, she declared that her mother “raised [her and her sister] to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage.” That night she explicitly gave a nod to her Indian American heritage, using the Tamil word “chitthis” in a loving reference to her aunts. She also proudly claimed her HBCU brothers and her fellow members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.. Harris is Black. And she is Indian.

In my book, I deconstruct two historical and contemporary tropes of mixed people as they apply to mixed-race politicians: the “tragic mulatto” and the “exceptional multiracial.” 

The former is based on the belief that individuals born of mixed parentage struggle between two worlds. This trope undergirds the myriad conversations about what Harris’ race is or isn’t, and political opponents often weaponize it, much like Trump did. In making his comments, Trump played into historical sentiments that mixed-race people are confused or dishonest about their identities.

Narratives like these not only distract from what Harris brings to the table as a policy maker and savvy politico, but reify White supremacy in ways that run counter to the antiracist future many of us long for.

The “exceptional multiracial,” meanwhile, is often characterized by exoticism and fetishism. That includes the common claim that  mixed-race people are uniquely attractive, and this plays out in real life. In 2013, former president Barack Obama came under fire for referring to Harris, then California’s attorney general, as “by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.” Even when it seems positive, compliments like these reinforce colorism and the false, pseudoscientific idea that the purpose of mixing the “races” through DNA is to make an aesthetically pleasing being. In reality, this view merely sharpens American racial inequality by privileging lighter-skinned mixed-race people and making them a curiosity for White America, while simultaneously putting them in a false hierarchy over darker-skinned, non-mixed-race people.

This narrow perspective perpetuates the myth that mixed-race population growth within the U.S. will lessen the urgent need to implement policies that advance racial justice and heal the scars of state violence suffered by Black Americans in particular — including by paying reparations, fortifying voting rights, providing dignified housing, and protecting the land. 

Despite the harms of false and prejudicial tropes, there are ways that multiracial leaders are finding constructive ways to leverage their fluid identities. In dozens of conversations with mixed-race politicians and their staff around the country, I’ve found that although their experiences differ, being asked, “What are you?” is a common denominator. While that line of questioning may present an initial disadvantage because it demands mixed-race politicians constantly explain their identities rather than their platforms, I have also found that mixed-race politicians enjoy widespread electoral appeal across voter groups.

The energy surrounding Harris’ campaign exemplifies this. Despite the longstanding discourse about Harris’ identity, she has thus far cultivated a multiracial coalition of support from voters. She raised a whopping $200 million in her first week since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, bringing in a record-setting $81 million in the first 24 hours. Identity-based groups from Black women to White dudes have taken to Zoom rallies to fundraise and marshal votes.

Our conversations about Harris’ identity and her appeal to Americans across groups are not coincidental: They are indicators of the enduring grip of these tropes. Simply recall how many people saw Obama as a symbol of a post-racial society, a leader that would deliver America from its “original sin” of White colonizers enslaving Africans and stealing land from Indigenous peoples. Instead, since Obama was elected, we have witnessed violent backlash from those who seek to undermine multiracial democracy, the January 6th attack on the Capitol being just one example. Talking about Harris like she’s ”The Great Multiracial Hope” falls into the same trap.

In the days, weeks, and months that follow, we must be careful not to invoke these tropes. Asking Harris to explain her identity over and over insults her agency to declare her own identity and is frankly a boring, tired, and reductive way of getting to know the person who may someday be our commander-in-chief. 

I don’t want to dismiss the power of seeing someone like her potentially be the president of the United States. Her background reflects those of many Americans who may see themselves in her — Black, South Asian, Jamaican, Tamil, children of immigrants, and women of color. But to debate about how she personally thinks about her identity does a disservice to Harris as a serious contender with over two decades of political experience. With the election just 94 days away, time spent addressing her identity is a distraction.

We must stay vigilant and recognize how the way we talk about this historic campaign, even with seemingly harmless and well-intended words, undermines the real work we must do to end systemic racism in the United States. 

We need to focus on issues and policies. We are running out of time.

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Danielle Casarez Lemi is a Tower Center Fellow at the John G. Tower Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She is co-author (with Nadia E. Brown) of Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites (Oxford University Press).