Thread by @HemaKarunakaram

@KamalaHarris will never be “brown enough” for you

...and she doesn’t have to be. A thread (1/10)

Imagine bringing home a Black man named Donald Harris as your boyfriend.
Imagine bringing home a biracial woman named Kamala Harris as your girlfriend.

Let’s not pretend these meetings would go well in many of our families. We can’t just selectively accept Black folks. (2/10)

Knowing our communities, Harris likely experienced some anti-Blackness from other South Asians growing up. Sharing this, if true, could show vulnerability and authenticity. (3/10)

But it could also alienate hundreds of thousands of #SouthAsian American voters.

No one likes to be called racist (even if they are). (4/10)

In her memoir, Harris talks about how her Indian mother knew the US would always see & treat her daughters as Black women.

This has to do with society’s perception, not her own. And we know this is still true. Mixed-Black folks are still seen as Black. (cc @BarackObama) (5/10)

South Asians getting upset over headlines about Harris being identified as Black feels very “All Lives Matter” to me.
No one said she wasn’t also South Asian. No one said that part of her identity didn’t count. (6/10)

Black voters have every right to be as excited about representation. The media may lean into them more because they are a larger demographic, because Harris attended an #HBCU, because of #BLM… (and btw Harris hasn’t always supported policies that help Black communities) (7/10)

Kamala Harris’s identity, like every politician’s, is a carefully crafted image.

She will get flack for not being brown enough, and for not being Black enough. And she will keep doing what she has to do as a political figure. (8/10)

@JoeBiden could have picked a cat as his running mate, and I’d still vote for him.

Instead he picked a bold, smart, no-nonsense leader who is the first South Asian woman and second Black woman to serve in the US #Senate. (9/10)

Does she have some problematic elements in her background? Yes.

Is her own racial identity one of those things? Absolutely not.
(10/10)