Trump's attack on Kamala Harris' identity

Hi guys, in a not so surprising turn of events, Trump has recently questioned Kamala Harris' racial identity during a heated exchange at a convention for black journalists when he falsely claimed the vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee had only emphasised her Asian-American heritage until recently when, he claimed, "she became a black person". This is so typical of what Trump does, he uses racist rhetoric to divide and conquer, it is a tactic that does work with a certain number of voters but as someone who struggles to tick a box when it comes to my ethnic or racial identity, this is an issue that is very personal to me as I had struggled to come to terms with this issue myself. So in this post, I'm going to explain how I don't feel the need to tick one box or another, that I can simply be myself whilst not conforming to any particular group but at the same time, I'll also explore why some people feel the need to do so. Firstly, identifying with one nationality or ethnicity is actually the norm for most people - Harris has an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, her circumstances are quite unusual in that her parents do not come from the same country or even share a common culture. Hence in her case, there are in fact a number of possibilities: firstly, she can identify as either Indian or Jamaican, secondly, she can identify as all off the above (Indian, Jamaican, American and anything else she wishes to identify as), thirdly, she can simply identify as American, and finally, she can identify with none of the above by just refusing to align her identity with one particular group. So let's run through each of those following possibilities and I will then share with you some of my own experiences as someone who has also faced these same issues about identity. 

Option 1: Identifying with only one of the two options

Let me give you a case study to illustrate my point: my friend Marie (not her real name) is half French half English. Her mother is French and her father is English, she was born in the UK and raised here. Marie identifies as English and not French (or both) for a simple reason: she did not get along with her mother and associated the French language with her mother. So even though she speaks French at native standard since her mother spoke French at home with her as a child, she would often pass as an English person who happens to speaks French well rather than a person with French blood. In fact, I had no idea that Marie was actually half French until I got to know her a lot better. Marie is thus able to convince others that she is 100% British and English as she speaks English as a native and being white, she looks no different from other indigenous British people, hence her Englishness and Britishness was never in question. Marie does speak French really well, she even has relatives in France but she has chosen not to have hardly any contact with them. It's not like Marie is picking her father over her mother - she also doesn't get along with her father, but since she has chosen to live in London and make a career for herself in England, she has decided it is a lot easier to blend in as a local rather than the exotic foreigner who is half French. Marie told me about this girl at school who was picked on because her parents were Polish immigrants and that Polish girl spoke English with a strong accent - that made Marie want to be just like the rest of the kids at the school and just blend in. There could be a whole multitude of reasons why children simply doesn't inherit their parents' culture and so the children then are left to define their own cultural identity. So in the case of someone like Marie, she would be a lot more likely to want to adopt the culture of the parent she gets along better with but I think it's also a question of parents understanding the process of selling and marketing your culture to their children. My father made zero effort to try to explain Chinese culture to me, he is very Chinese by default - since he can't speak any English, he is effectively monolingual and thus can only access Chinese culture. He didn't pick Chinese culture over other cultural identities, Chinese culture was the only option available to him. But if my father had realized that if he really wanted me to be as Chinese as he was, he would have had to market Chinese culture to me when I also had all these various other cultural influences in my life. Well, he did none of that. Hence in Marie's case, if her mother couldn't even get along with Marie how was she ever going to convince Marie to get in touch with her French roots then? 

Option 2: Identifying with both options

Allow me to introduce you to my friend Matthias - he is a German citizen who born in Frankfurt but has spent more than half his life in the UK since his parents moved over to London for work when he was a child and he has remained here ever since. He has finished his degree recently and got himself a job in London. To his British friends, he is simply Matt and you wouldn't realize that he isn't British. But to his German friends, he is Matthias from Frankfurt. He has had access to both German and British cultures, thus he doesn't feel like he needs to choose between the two given that he comfortably identifies with both. Whilst Matthias was educated mostly in the UK, he spoke German at home with his parents and often visited his extended family back in Germany; thus he is equally well acquainted with both cultures. So his British friends think that he is British and his German friends think that he is German and actually, they are all right as Matthias identifies as both. The only way to convincingly, successfully perform this option is if you have excellent knowledge of both cultures and can convince people from both cultures that you are indeed one of them. Case in point, back in 2021, I covered the story of a social media influener Oli London who came out as 'Korean' after having had extensive plastic surgery. Now even if the plastic surgeons can make him look very Korean, nobody from Korea would ever consider Oli London one of them as culturally, he isn't Korean enough - he is just an attention hungry British person. Oh he got a lot of hate online over his claim to be Korean. Allow me to contrast Oli London with a famous white Canadian comedian Mark Rowswell who has lived in China since 1988 and he is more commonly known by his Chinese name Dashan. He is a huge star in China and has a very impressive career in Chinese media, doing everything from TV to live shows to theatre to presenting to comedy - being so highly educated, he actually speaks Mandarin better than most Chinese people and only the highly educated elite could match him in that department. So whether or not Dashan chooses to identify as Chinese is his personal choice, but if he wanted to do so, the vast majority of Chinese people would ignore the colour of his skin and simply accept him as one of their own given how he has woven himself into the fabric of modern China over the last few decades. Of course, it is entirely possible to identify with more than two options, as long as you do have sufficient knowledge of the culture to be accepted by the locals. You can't just claim to identify as Korean like Oli London did without having first earned the right to do that, the way Dashan has with the Chinese people. 

Option 3: Identifying with the country of residence, rather than the country of your parents.

It is pretty obvious why someone like Harris would choose this option: she has born and raised in America, she has never lived in India or Jamaica. Whilst she might have made a genuine effort to get in touch with her parents' culture, she would be a lot more influenced by the people around her in America during her childhood. This is a very typical immigrant child experience whereby their parents may still hold on to the culture of their country of origin, but that is simply not passed onto the next generation who grow up fully assimilated. After all, this outcome is hardly surprising - the immigrant child will spend more time with their peers at school and have other influences like social media and television whilst their parents are busy at work. There is also a very practical aspect to this as well - if there is a level of language barrier for the first generation migrants, they may find it a lot harder to assimilate as that language barrier could prevent them from accessing the local culture. This is why first generation migrants are far more likely to stay within their own migrant communities - their kids however, are far less likely to face that same problem. This is actually often encouraged by the immigrant parents, so in America, they have come to America in pursuit of the wonderful American dream and thus having their children assimilate fully as Americans is naturally a part of that process. The immigrant parents would also realize that their children would be far better off at school and in the job market if they were fully integrated and assimilated, that's why they often encourage their children to identify with the country they live in and fully embrace that identity. Even if someone like Harris wanted to identify as Indian, well Indian people from India would look at her and think, hang on a minute, you're not like us - your mother may be from India but you have never ever lived in India, you don't really understand our culture and you have far more in common with the people in America than with the people from India, so how can you be truly Indian even if that's what you choose to identify as? Thus with that in mind, it might be just a lot easier to identify as American rather than claim to be Indian when you are always going to be questioned whether you are indeed Indian enough to be considered truly Indian by the Indian people who have always lived in India. 

Option 4: None of the above. 

I'd like to think that we live in a post-racial society where your cultural identity matters so much more than your skin colour or where your parents are from. So most people would view me as Chinese because of my facial features and the fact that I have a rather common Chinese surname. However, I find it hard to identify as Chinese as that would assume that I would have enough common culture with over 1.4 billion Chinese people around the world. Never mind those 1.4 billion Chinese people - I don't even have that much in common with my own siblings or my parents. There is a massive generation gap between myself and my parents and even with my siblings, we're all very different in character and that's why we have a rather distant relationship today. So if I don't even feel like I have anything in common with my own family, I hope you can understand why I don't feel any special connection with Chinese people. Instead, I feel more of a real connection with people who share common interests with me, such as those from the gymnastics community, those who work in the same industry as I do or even those who are fanatical about certain reality TV programmes that I am obsessed about. That's when I can easily point to something I share in common with these people whereas my lack of interest in Chinese culture has meant that I feel little connection with other Chinese people. But let's go back a hundred years and look at the Chinese migrants who went to America, they were mostly confined to the Chinatowns as they didn't speak English and so they couldn't work with other Americans and of course, they faced a lot of racism back then. Nonetheless, just because they faced the same challenges and problems didn't mean they actually had anything in common or even liked each other. This is why I'd like to believe that we have evolved as a society to the point where we are simply free to seek friends who actually share our interests and hence our modern communities will be formed along those lines, rather than have anything to do with our skin colour or our parents' country of origin. It's not like I have refused to acknowledge my Chinese roots, I don't think I would be happy if I used that as my primary criteria to try to find friends. In any case, Mandarin is my third language - it's not even my second language! I know I'll never be Chinese enough for people from China, that's why I just find it a lot easier not to identify with any particular label like British, Chinese or Singaporean because none of those labels would describe me adequately or accurately. I'd rather people got to know me as an individual, rather than simply slap a label on my identity that doesn't reflect the person I have become.

Wait, option 4 is obviously the nicest option, but why isn't it more popular then? 

It is easier to define yourself as an individual when you have plenty of achievements to define you - it might be your academic achievements, it might be a really successful career or even a hobby that you are especially passionate about. But what if you lack any of those? This is a reality for a lot of people who weren't that great at school, perhaps they never pursued any kind of further education and simply went into a job that was easy but lowly paid (and yes, I'm thinking about my parents). There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people like that, in fact they represent the majority of ordinary folks out there. But for people like that, they simply use their nationality and/or ethnicity to create their core identity and that's why it is very easy for them to use a label like 'Chinese' or 'Indian' and they do feel perfectly comfortable using a label like that - they are not trying to use their own achievements or experiences to define their identity, instead they are shifting the focus onto that culture which they identify with. Thus when someone like my mother says, "I am Chinese", you would simply take that statement at face value and assume that she does all kinds of things that Chinese people who identify as Chinese do such as celebrate certain Chinese festivals and observe certain traditions.  For some people, they would rather use a label like that in order to avoid having to talk about themselves and answer difficult questions like, "what's your highest education qualification? What have you achieved in your career and how much do you earn? How much respect do you command in your community? If you have an opinion to share, how many people will listen to what you have to say?" These could all be potentially difficult questions to answer, depending on your personal circumstances and if you would rather not have to try to answer those questions in order to forge your own identity, it is so much easier to just say, "I'm Chinese". I know this Chinese Malaysian woman (let's call her Mrs Tan, not her real name) who had a very working class job, she worked long hours in a job she could barely tolerated and derived little joy from it. Given how poorly paid her job was, she was quite poor and led a very modest lifestyle. However, every year at Chinese new year, she would allow herself to celebrate: she would buy expensive new clothes, she would feast like a queen, she would also get drunk and gamble (something she wouldn't normally allow herself to do). For just that brief period during the Chinese new year, Mrs Tan allowed herself a break from her normal life. There was genuine joy in the way she celebrated Chinese new year, even though I often wondered why she would celebrate like that as Chinese new year happens every single year without fail - thus what is the reason for that kind of grand celebration for Mrs Tan then? 

I would never celebrate a festival like that, be it Christmas, Chinese new year or even my birthday.  I believe you have to earn the right to celebrate - so for example, if I had done very well in an exam, if I had won a gymnastics competition or if I had closed a huge business deal, then I have accomplished something really amazing and have earned the right to celebrate in style. But in the case of Mrs Tan, if she has the same criteria as I do when it comes to earning the right to celebrate like that, then she would never ever celebrate given how mundane her job is. Thus Chinese new year is used as an excuse for people like Mrs Tan to experience some joy and celebrate at least once a year whether or not she has done anything to earn that right to celebrate. Hence for someone like Mrs Tan, her Chinese identity is so vital to her as it gives her the 'right' to celebrate Chinese new year, it is the one thing every year that can bring her so much joy. Hence for people like Mrs Tan who don't have that much in her life, her cultural identity is one of the very few things she can hold onto and there's no doubt that in observing certain Chinese customs and rituals during Chinese new year, it brings her a lot of joy. No don't get me wrong, I don't want to single Mrs Tan out for being Chinese. I also witnessed an incident in Glasgow some years ago when a very drunk Scottish man was being arrested during the New Year's day celebration, for some reason he decided to throw an empty beer can at a police officer and that's assault - he was arrested for that and his only defence was that it was Hogmanay, thus he was very drunk and couldn't be held responsible for his actions. For those of you who aren't familiar with Scottish customs, Hogmanay is Scottish new year but it's also celebrated on New Year's Eve. They just call it Hogmanay in Scotland. I could only shake my head in disbelief at what I had witnessed as I really don't believe that Hogmanay or whatever you want to call your new year is any reason for that kind of wild celebration - you have to earn the right to celebrate like that. But sadly, this drunk Scottish guy was probably as miserable as Mrs Tan in Malaysia and so there was something strikingly similar in their mindsets despite the fact that they were so far apart from each other. So that is why I can see why some people are quite happy to cling on so desperately to their cultural or national identity and if doing so helps them through their miserable lives then that's their choice, but that's not how I choose to live my life and I simply expect others to take a moment to understand my choices.

But does it really matter in Harris' case? 

No, it shouldn't and the reason is that we should vote for politicians who are most qualified to lead and are most likely to do a good job - that would then depend on their track record and manifesto, rather than the colour of their skin. Back when Obama first ran for president in 2008, I spoke to my friend John who is an African-American voter and he told me how he was worried the Democratic party might just take it for granted that people like him would automatically vote for Obama on the basis of race. He explained, "if they take it for granted that Obama would have all the black votes simply based on the colour of Obama's skin, then his team would not be that concerned about having to do anything to win the black vote - their resources and attention would then be directed to other segments of the electorate and that would not be a good outcome for the black community. As an African-American, I don't just want a black president, I want an administration who would take an interest in the issues that black people in America face everyday." Perhaps this seems like common sense but I do feel like it is necessary to move beyond one's skin colour in the modern world and more importantly, we ought to avoid making assumptions of people based on the colour of their skin! Thus in the case of Harris, I really don't care about her ethnic or cultural origin, but rather how good she would be as the next president of America and what kind of impact a Harris presidency would have on major issues like climate change, the global economy as well as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. I'd also be far more interested in her track record on issues that are close to my heart such as human rights (especially LGBTQ rights) and the environment. After all, with the environment for example, that's an issue that affects every single human being regardless of the colour of their skin - rather, it is their attitudes and opinion that define their stance on the matter towards decarbonization and green energy. This is a very complex matter of course, it is too easy for me to claim that in our modern world, race and skin colour shouldn't matter in politics at all, but if you look at the anti-immigration riots that have been happening in the UK for the past week, it is all about race and more specifically, a deep desire for some sections of society here to show extreme hostility to black and Muslim migrants who have come to the UK. Now that story warrants a whole other post on its own to discuss that topic (and I probably will write a post on that next), but it is a stark reminder that we cannot simply ignore the issue of race and skin colour when it comes to politics, just because we have a desire to think that it really shouldn't matter in an ideal world: the fact is we don't live in an ideal world, far from it and thus this is an issue that we still have to deal with in 2024. 

Okay guys so that's it from me on this topic, please let me know your thoughts on this issue and many thanks for reading.