Thread by @thearmchaircom

So all the people who are all “how can Kamala Harris be an African American when her dad is Jamaican and her mom is from India...” make me irrationally angry.

This is such an ignorant comment and I’m tired of hearing it. People are trying to make it sound like she’s a fraud and policing her identity and I’m done with it.

I don’t usually get in the weeds with stuff like this, but I’m feeling froggy so let me go ahead and leap.

So for all of those ignorant, not understanding the Black community and Black culture folks out there (and the non-ignorant people who are unsure of how to respond to them):

1. Kamala identifies as BLACK, she is also Biracial because her mom was south Asian.

2. Black and African American are two different things

3. African American = people of African descent born in the US

4. In the US, Black = people of African descent period.

5. There are Black people from the Caribbean, UK, and other parts of the world that are part of the African Diaspora. Some of those folks have immigrated to the US and some have been here for multiple generations. Which is why African American isn’t always the best descriptor.

6. Sometimes people of African descent who are children of immigrants and born in the US identify as African American because African American literally means being of African descent and born in the US.

7. Sometimes people from the African Continent who immigrate here identify as African American because they are literally from Africa and/or because they identify with the Black American culture.

8. Sometimes Black people born in the US don’t identify as African American and either identify as Black American (this is my preferred term), or as whatever nationality or ethnic group(s) they belong to. We typically just call people black unless we know their identifiers.

9. There is also the label Afro- which is another way of saying of African descent. So Afro-British, Afro-Latino/a/x, etc.

10. Black folks will use a combination of all of these identifiers or none of these to identify themselves. Because Black identity is complex.

11. Biracial and multiracial people might use even more complex identifiers for themselves and that’s totally fine. A lot might just simply identify as Black or African American.

12. Notice that in none of these descriptions did I include what white folks think of a person’s identity. How we identify is not for you to scrutinize and not for you to determine. Listen to how people identify and use those terms to describe them. Or just say Black.

13. Just because you don’t understand how Blackness works don’t make somebody else a fraud. Just admit you don’t know or understand something rather than making your ignorance someone else’s problem.

14. Kamala is a grown woman and can identify as best fits how she interprets the facts of her identity.

15. Instead of policing Kamala’s identity, you need to be police your ignorance and racism. ☕️🐸