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Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of Jamaican and Indian descent, has long been someone people have tried to categorize.
Since joining Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket, some South Asians on social media have started calling Harris “Kamala Auntie.” But the family and festive reaction also sparked serious discussion.
Critics point out that before South Asian Americans can “claim” Harris as one of their own, the community must face its own anti-darkness.
Discussions among South Asians around Harris’ black and Indian background have always been messy, a fact that has only intensified since Biden chose her as his running mate. Some have criticized her for only appearing to hang out with South Asians at times, others are upset by the media that her Indian roots have been left out, while many now feel compelled to defend her from attacks. racists of President Donald Trump.
While there was a wave of celebrations and praise for Harris from young South Asians following Biden’s announcement, some have drawn attention to difficult truths his appointment would force the community to face. .
“I wonder if Kamala Harris as vice president will have an impact on the ‘No Blacks’ marriage rule that Indian immigrants have set for their children,” comedian Hari Kondabolu tweeted.
Anti-Darkness can be uncomfortably familiar to many South Asians. Whether it’s years of implicit prejudice or overt beliefs that have long gone unchecked in families and communities, critics say it needs to be dismantled before there can be any demonstrations. Celebratory performatives for the Indian half of a black woman.
“We are aware of the insults against the dark, for black people, the skin whitening creams, the warnings given to ‘desi’ children not to bring black partners home,” said Dr. Dhanashree Thorat, assistant professor. at Mississippi State University. studies race, feminism and systemic oppression. “So if we’re ready to accept her as a black woman, are we ready to face all of these things?”
Before the Indian community rallies around Harris, they must understand how being black affects someone’s life in the United States and around the world, Thorat said. Because, while South Asians might be hungry for representation, celebrating only one’s Indian heritage is an erasure that nurtures anti-darkness and the myth of the model minority.
For immigrants to the United States after 1965, the myth of the model minority was perpetuated by ruling whites, praising Asian Americans as being inherently hard-working and assimilating to reject black oppression and Latin Americans, experts said.
“Why are our communities rallying to her now?” she says. “I can’t help but think that her identity as a black woman has suddenly become more appetizing precisely because she is within reach of this high office. And that is exactly how the discourse of model minorities works. “
Harris’s relationship with Asian South America
Harris hasn’t necessarily been silent about her South Asian identity – she has previously spoken of the inspiration she drew from her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who immigrated to the United States at age 19 from the South. India, and her progressive grandfather, whom she visited in India. sometimes. But the senator never particularly spoke of her complex identity until her candidacy for the presidential election of 2020.
She said she would prefer to define herself as “American”.
Even during her campaign, she was one of two Asian-American candidates running – but the American public image of an “Asian” doesn’t look like Harris.
“Andrew Yang, an East Asian, shared the stage with her, who automatically became in people’s minds the candidate of Asian descent, even though he wasn’t the only one,” Nitish Pahwa said, a Native American writer who analyzed Harris’s relationship with South Asian Americans.
But as soon as she was announced as Biden’s running mate, Indians were quick to celebrate that there might be “someone in the White House who knows her mirch and masala.”
But celebrating Harris isn’t as easy as calling her “aunt”.
According to Pawha, asking Harris to emphasize her Indian roots over her black roots is to ignore her lived experiences in the U.S. The Senator wrote in her 2019 book “The Truths We Hold” that although her mother is a Indian woman, she “understood very well that she was raising two black girls.
“Nowhere is the Indian experience in America so deeply tied to American history and institutions as the black experience in America,” Pahwa said.
There is also a need to consider other people who are both Asian and black and who have experienced intense discrimination in Asian circles, Thorat said.
“It’s almost like people are talking about her as two separate women,” Thorat said. “You have Kamala who is a black woman and Kamala who is South Asian. And it’s not two separate people. Why are we just celebrating his South Asian descent? Why can’t we celebrate her as a black woman? “
And if representation is important, Thorat encourages voters to look beyond that. It’s important to consider Harris’ political history – his strong stand against crime and his support for policing petty offenses – in determining how his leadership will affect marginalized communities.
“We have to ask ourselves, what are these people going to commit to as part of their function in this political office?” she says. “Are they committed to racial justice, to adopting immigration changes and other types of progressive policies?”
The effect of casteism and colonialism
While the recent Black Lives Matter protests have been the catalyst for conversations in Asian American homes, the struggle against blacks on the subcontinent is not a new concept. It dates back centuries, experts say. And its two driving forces are casteism and colonialism.
These two structures, yet legally abolished, still influence Indian culture, perpetuating colorism by rewarding people with lighter skin.
“All of our communities have been nurtured against the dark. In South Asia, it’s anti-darkness, ”psychotherapist Yuki Yamazaki told NBC Asian America in June. Yamazaki is part South India, part Japanese, and studies Asian Americans and Colorism at Fordham University.
The South Asians’ instinct to prove their adjacency to whiteness began in the United States as early as the 1920s, when some Indians fighting for court argued that they should be considered “white.” for immigration purposes and that their status as “high caste Hindus” should also count. That changed after the 1965 immigration law, Yamazaki said, but the idealization of whiteness endures.
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