Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
At a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists conference this past week, ABC's Rachel Scott asked former President Donald Trump about the racist attacks on his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her a “DEI candidate” or “DEI hire.”
Trump didn’t answer the question. Instead he launched into another line of attack. “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. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris is both, as a person of mixed race. But facts and understanding complex identity are not really the point, says Alvin Tillery, founding director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University. Tillery also does polling and is actively supporting Harris.
“He got the media covering and re-articulating his birtherism 2.0 theory,” he says about Trump.
If birtherism 1.0 questioned Obama’s legitimacy, this new attack, complete with Harris’ birth certificate circulating online, implies that she is not legitimately Black enough.
On the surface the two birtherisms may seem contradictory, but Tillery says they are really the same thing.
“It's an automatic racist response.” Tillery says. He says it assumes that race is something inherent or biological, noting that race is not fixed; it wanders, he says and being mixed race can be proof of that wandering.
“It's also white supremacy saying ‘We can define you....
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