CHICAGO: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump falsely suggested to the country’s largest annual gathering of Black journalists on Wednesday that his Democratic rival Kamala Harris had previously downplayed her Black heritage.

“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. 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,” Trump said, drawing a smattering of jeers from an audience of about 1,000 people.

“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black? Trump continued. “But you know what, I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn, and she went — she became a Black person.”

Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican heritage, has long self-identified as both Black and Asian.

She is the first Black person and Asian American person to serve as vice president.

Hours after Trump’s comments, Harris told members of the historically Black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho gathered in Houston that his remarks were “yet another remin­der” of what the four years under the former president looked like.

‘Black jobs’

The interview at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention in Chicago started on a tense note, when ABC News reporter Rachel Scott — one of three Black women moderators — listed a series of racist comments Trump had made and asked why Black voters should support him.

In response, Trump called the question “horrible”, “hostile” and a “disgrace” and described ABC as a “fake” network.

“I have been the best president for the Black population since Abra­ham Lincoln,” he boasted, drawing groans from the audience.

Trump repeated a line from the presidential debate in June, claiming that migrants crossing the US southern border would take away “Black jobs”, a term that drew criticism from some Black leaders.

“What exactly is a ‘Black job’, sir?” Scott asked him. “A Black job is anybody with a job,” Trump replied.

Trump also declined to say whether Harris was a “DEI hire”, as some fellow Republicans have claimed, saying, “I don’t know”.

The abbreviation stands for “diversity, equ­ity and inclusion” initiatives aimed at increasing representation of women and people of colour in the workforce to address long-standing inequities and discrimination. The term “DEI hire” is used to suggest a person is not qualified and was chosen on the basis of race or gender.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2024