By Cody Yarbrough, Contributing Writer
For the first time in this country’s history, a woman of color is the Democrat front runner to be elected as the President of the United States. As such, every piece of Kamala Harris’ life is being exposed, broadcast, and dissected by both political allies and rivals alike.
Yet, in the modern age of information, there seems to be a gross amount of misinformation being spread about the current Vice President. The slander ranges from slyly deceitful to outright ridiculous. It’s gotten so bad that even some political analysts have found themselves accidentally regurgitating some of these harmful claims. The only way to fight fiction is with facts. So, we’ve picked out some of the most prevalent rumors spreading around the political sphere to debunk them and make sure that Detroit voters are properly educated about Harris before walking into the voters’ booth.
She Locked Up Thousands of Black Men on Marijuana Charges
Probably the most scandalous thing about the vice president isn’t based on anything illegal or immoral (unlike her Republican opponent) but on her work as the District Attorney of San Fransico. The allegation is that she targeted Black men during her time as DA and locked away thousands of them on menial marijuana charges. Some say she did it to boost her career; others say that she did it out of pure hate for Black men. In truth, the motivation for such acts is irrelevant because the number of Black men that have been sent to prison during Harris’s has been greatly inflated.
Harris did not throw thousands of Black men in prison for marijuana. She didn’t put hundreds of men in prison for marijuana. The number of individuals who saw the inside of a cell for such charges didn’t even reach the number one hundred. During all seven years of her time as DA, Harris’s office only imprisoned 45 people on the charge of marijuana possession. This number is not only a far cry from what the rumor claims but is a district low that hadn’t been seen for decades. Harris may have worked for the US justice system, but she was nowhere near the law-and-order politician that many paint her to be.
She’s a Secret Marxist
This is a much easier one to disprove. Harris’s father, Donald J. Harris, is an economics professor. Meaning that analyzing and discussing different economic systems is a large part of his job. In the academic world, he is most notable for his work tackling the concept of “capital development” and “uneven development.” To oversimplify, these ideas state that economic inequality is inevitable in capitalist growth. They are Marxist concepts for sure, and Harris’s most prominent work does lean heavily on accepting them as truth. However, while the expressed thoughts of Kamala’s father certainly are leftist, he has made it clear that he identifies as neither a Marxist nor a Communist. The school of thought he belongs to is called post-Keynesian. It focuses on the instability of the current world economic state, and while it may take such notes from far-left ideologies, it is not inherently Marxist.
These facts mean very little to Kamala Harris’s political enemies, though. To them, to acknowledge Communist ideas is to be Communist. And since she was raised by a perceived radical leftist, it must mean that the Vice-President is a secret Marxist who plans to run the country like a Russian dictator and seize property, guns, and freedom from red-blooded American patriots. Right? Clearly, this rumor doesn’t hold up against scrutiny. But right-wing voices love to repeat this piece of misinformation whenever Harris talks about equality or using her presidential powers to help low-income Americans. Even if her father was an outspoken Marxist, there is nothing in her career or personal past to suggest she is.
She Isn’t a Black American
Over the past decade, there has been a small but loud movement amongst Black people in the United States that has only served to further divide us and sabotage Black unity globally. They identify as “Black Foundational Americans,” and if you’re not a Black person who descends from American slaves, then you’re an outsider to them. According to this group, Harris isn’t a Black American. Many of them don’t even consider her Black at all. Because of her Jamaican and Indian parentage, they claim that Kamala doesn’t know the Black experience in this country and insults Black culture every time she pretends to be one of us. But this, like many things said about her, is an outright lie.
Harris was born in Oakland, Calif., and spent her childhood there living with her Black Jamaican father. She attended a Black church growing up and even sang in the choir there. After spending her teen years in Montreal, Canada, she returned to the U.S. to study at Howard University, an HBCU, where she would go on to pledge to the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. She even served as President of her chapter of the Black Law Students Association while pursuing her law degree at UC Law.
Long before running for public office had even crossed her mind, Kamala Harris identified as a Black woman. She’s sought out Black spaces and joined them. Now that she is a public figure, she has not shied away from her Blackness like many other Black politicians have in the past. Harris’s Indian-ness does not offset her Blackness, and her Jamaican blood doesn’t make her any less American. To ostracize a Black person who has been raised in Black communities, educated in Black schools, and established themselves in Black organizations simply because they’re not the right kind of Black is insanely dangerous and disingenuous.
There are more rumors out there that need debunking; more than just one article can tackle. As the news becomes more politicized and the internet becomes more cluttered with false information, it can be difficult to tell the truth from lies. As stated earlier, the only way to fight fiction is with facts. And the only way to obtain the facts is by doing research for yourself. It’s a tedious process for sure, but in order to escape the endless waves of propaganda, it has to be done.
Venomous lies about Black people have been circulating for hundreds of years, and they intensify a hundredfold whenever we look to advance socially. Rumors about a political candidate are far from anything new, but the allegations leveled at Harris are nothing short of xenophobic, misogynistic, and racist. If a woman of color is to become the President of the United States, you best believe that those opposed to her will cook up the vilest slander imaginable.
As Black voters, it’s our responsibility to separate the fake from the real. Don’t believe a story until you’ve corroborated it with a trusted source, and don’t believe a quote unless you’ve heard it yourself.
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