vox--2020-08-13--Trump admits he’s stalling pandemic relief to make it harder to vote

At a Wednesday press briefing , President Donald Trump laid out some of his objections to a Democratic proposal to provide additional aid to individuals and states who are struggling financially during the pandemic .
He specifically named two provisions that he finds unacceptable : $ 3.5 billion in funding for elections that could be used to fund mail-in voting , and $ 25 billion in funding for the post office .
Appearing on Fox Business Thursday morning , Trump elaborated on his objection to these two line items : He doesn ’ t want universal mail-in voting to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots ” — something that Trump apparently views as a bad thing .
“ Those are just two items , ” Trump added .
“ But if they don ’ t get those two items , that means you can ’ t have universal mail-in voting.
” Trump has spent much of the pandemic railing against universal mail-in voting , a practice where states automatically mail ballots to registered voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Nevada in an attempt to invalidate that state ’ s law providing for voting by mail .
At times , Trump ’ s also ranted against absentee ballots , which allow voters to cast a ballot by mail but only if they specifically request such a ballot in advance .
Though he said earlier this month that mail-in ballots in Florida are fine because “ Florida ’ s got a great Republican governor.
” Trump frequently claims that mail-in ballots are a vehicle for voter fraud — indeed , he did so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ morning , suggesting that additional funding for voting by mail will lead to “ something that will turn out to be fraudulent.
” But there ’ s no evidence that any meaningful amount of mail-in ballot voter fraud exists .
The state of Oregon , for example , has provided more than 100 million mail-in ballots to voters since 2000 but has only documented about 12 cases of fraud .
Similarly , according to the Brennan Center for Justice ’ s Wendy Weiser and Harold Ekeh , “ an exhaustive investigative journalism analysis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012.
” Billions of votes were cast during that period .
It is more likely that Trump is opposed to mail-in voting for a more basic reason — tossing out mailed ballots is likely to disenfranchise a large number of Democratic voters .
Several polls have shown that Trump voters are likely to cast their ballot in person , while Biden voters are much more likely to vote by mail .
Mail delivery has slowed significantly in recent months , and many Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sabotaging the post office .
Many postal workers are no longer allowed to work overtime , slowing the process of sorting and delivering the mail .
And Postmaster General Louis DeJoy , a major Trump donor , recently announced plans to reassign 23 post office executives and centralize power around himself .
Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure how it would go .
Today , we ’ re humbled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive , and advertising alone won ’ t let us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

At a Wednesday press briefing, President Donald Trump laid out some of his objections to a Democratic proposal to provide additional aid to individuals and states who are struggling financially during the pandemic. He specifically named two provisions that he finds unacceptable: $3.5 billion in funding for elections that could be used to fund mail-in voting, and $25 billion in funding for the post office.
Appearing on Fox Business Thursday morning, Trump elaborated on his objection to these two line items: He doesn’t want universal mail-in voting to be possible.
Democrats, he claimed, “need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots” — something that Trump apparently views as a bad thing.
“Those are just two items,” Trump added. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”
Trump admits he's sabotaging the Postal Service so universal mail voting will be impossible during an election that will be conducted amid a pandemic this November pic.twitter.com/epmxcgwLjK — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2020
Trump has spent much of the pandemic railing against universal mail-in voting, a practice where states automatically mail ballots to registered voters. His campaign even sued the state of Nevada in an attempt to invalidate that state’s law providing for voting by mail.
At times, Trump’s also ranted against absentee ballots, which allow voters to cast a ballot by mail but only if they specifically request such a ballot in advance. Though he said earlier this month that mail-in ballots in Florida are fine because “Florida’s got a great Republican governor.”
Trump frequently claims that mail-in ballots are a vehicle for voter fraud — indeed, he did so again in his Fox Business interview Thursday morning, suggesting that additional funding for voting by mail will lead to “something that will turn out to be fraudulent.”
But there’s no evidence that any meaningful amount of mail-in ballot voter fraud exists. The state of Oregon, for example, has provided more than 100 million mail-in ballots to voters since 2000 but has only documented about 12 cases of fraud.
Similarly, according to the Brennan Center for Justice’s Wendy Weiser and Harold Ekeh, “an exhaustive investigative journalism analysis of all known voter fraud cases identified only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012.” Billions of votes were cast during that period.
It is more likely that Trump is opposed to mail-in voting for a more basic reason — tossing out mailed ballots is likely to disenfranchise a large number of Democratic voters. Several polls have shown that Trump voters are likely to cast their ballot in person, while Biden voters are much more likely to vote by mail.
Mail delivery has slowed significantly in recent months, and many Democrats have accused the Trump administration of intentionally sabotaging the post office. Many postal workers are no longer allowed to work overtime, slowing the process of sorting and delivering the mail. And Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump donor, recently announced plans to reassign 23 post office executives and centralize power around himself.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-14--7 provocative documentaries that show how our political process has evolved

The national political conventions are upon us — and they ’ ll look very different this year , thanks to the pandemic .
( The Democratic National Convention , anchored in Milwaukee but mostly online , will be held from August 17 to 20 ; the GOP counterpart , after some moving around , is slated to happen both online and in Charlotte from August 24 to 27 . )
But while some people ’ s TV screens will be occupied by convention antics for the next few weeks , I ’ m much more interested in a movie about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : One that ’ s made up entirely of teenagers .
For Boys State , documentarians Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine ( The Overnighters ) traveled to Texas to follow the state ’ s 2018 summer session of a program called , well , Boys State .
( There ’ s a Girls State program , too . )
Administered by the American Legion , Boys State is a gathering of more than a thousand 17-year-old boys who , over the course of one week , form a representative government , complete with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to learn about and experience firsthand how the American system of government works .
The film is uplifting , funny , thrilling , and revealing .
The teens come to Boys State with formed political ideas , but through debate , discussion , and defense of their stances , they learn a lot about what it takes to cultivate consensus and win .
And their experiences provide both a microcosmic look into the political process and a hint of the way future politics might unfold , in dismal and strangely hopeful ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Boys State won the festival ’ s top documentary prize and broke the record for the highest acquisition price paid for a documentary , with A24 and Apple buying the film for $ 12 million .
And now , Apple subscribers can watch the film on AppleTV+ .
Boys State is less of a “ political documentary ” and more of an exploration of the political process .
And personally , I find process-oriented films far more interesting than polemical political documentaries designed to convince you to vote one way or another .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cameras became readily available in the 1960s , documentarians started hauling them onto convention floors and campaign trails .
The result is that there are lots of great documentaries ( and mockumentaries ) about the American political circus , and I couldn ’ t possibly name them all .
But here are a few important and particularly revealing films that give a peek into what ’ s changed in the American political process since TV and film became part of campaigns in the 1960s — and what hasn ’ t .
A trailblazing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view of the political process The 1960 film Primary wasn ’ t just illuminating , it was groundbreaking .
The film centers on the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary in which the two candidates were John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey .
The filmmakers ( documentary buffs will recognize the creative team of Robert Drew , Richard Leacock , Albert Maysles , and D.A .
Pennebaker , who together went on to make three more films about Kennedy ) used new , lighter equipment that allowed them to more easily follow and capture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their staff , and their supporters , and in so doing they created a foundational work of “ direct cinema ” that informed decades of political video-based reporting .
And they did it all in a time when television and video images were starting to become a major force in political campaigns .
How to watch it : Primary is streaming on HBO Max .
It ’ s also available to digitally rent or purchase on platforms including iTunes and Amazon .
A revealing look at how punditry morphed into polarized political debate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ F. Buckley and author and provocateur Gore Vidal — famous for their strong opinions about politics and each other — were recruited by ABC to participate in a series of on-air debates during the major political parties ’ conventions .
Protests and demonstrations marked both parties ’ gatherings that turbulent year .
And the debates were famously contentious , too , rocketing ABC to the top of the ratings and solidifying , as this documentary argues , the future of hyperpartisan politics and entertainment-driven , shouting-head TV news punditry .
Best of Enemies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also made the hit Fred Rogers documentary Won ’ t You Be My Neighbor ) recounts the debates and their fallout .
The result is exciting but also chilling — an origin story for a long national nightmare .
How to watch it : Best of Enemies is streaming on Hulu for subscribers and for free on Tubi .
It ’ s also available to digitally rent or purchase on services including Apple TV and Google Play .
A ground-level , boundary-pushing view of political conventions and the people who go to them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hour-long “ guerrilla ” TV movie consisting of footage shot during the Republican National Convention in 1972 , when “ four more years ” was the chant from Nixon ’ s fans .
The first independently produced videotape to be broadcast on television , the film focuses on media coverage , protests , and Nixon ’ s young supporters , with long , revealing interviews .
Some people in the film claimed they didn ’ t know they ’ d appear , and the crew tried to stay inconspicuous .
Four More Years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two years before Nixon ’ s resignation .
How to watch it : You can stream Four More Years on Vimeo or at the Media Burn Archive .
Was Ronald Reagan the consummate performer ?
The Reagan Show makes the case that the former actor ’ s onscreen experience was a perfect training ground for his presidency , chronicling the Reagan administration entirely through news reports and footage shot by the administration itself .
It uses Reagan ’ s work as an actor and one of his common nicknames — “ the Great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , opening with a very prescient-seeming clip of Reagan telling newscaster David Brinkley , at the end of his time in office , that “ there have been times in this office when I wonder how you could do the job without having been an actor.
” How to watch it : The Reagan Show is streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on services like Apple TV and Google Play .
A mockumentary miniseries about authenticity and the campaign trail In 1988 , nobody named Jack Tanner was actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But HBO broadcast an 11-episode miniseries about the fictional Tanner anyhow , directed by Robert Altman and written by Doonesbury ’ s Garry Trudeau .
Tanner ( played by Michael Murphy ) is an idealistic Democratic congressman who ’ s on the campaign trail , accompanied by his 19-year-old daughter Alexandra ( Cynthia Nixon ) .
Tanner struggles to distinguish himself against a pack of competitors until his campaign manager T.J. Cavanaugh ( Pamela Reed ) figures out how to present him through footage of pep talks he gives his staff , caught @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reality and fiction ; “ real ” people like Bob Dole , Pat Robertson , Ralph Nader , Gloria Steinem , and many others show up as themselves , and Tanner ’ s campaign staff is constantly talking about his competitors ( including Joe Biden , who was running for president back then , too ) .
It ’ s a brilliantly satirical series that skewers the process of running for political office more than political positions themselves , and with Altman at the helm , its style feels different from most TV @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watch it : Tanner ’ 88 is streaming on the Criterion Channel and on HBO Max .
The series is also available to digitally rent or purchase on Amazon .
An exploration of a campaign navigating upset and scandal By 1992 , presidential candidates were used to having cameras follow them around , but even by those standards , Bill Clinton ’ s campaign was unusually loaded with defining moments that made for great clips .
D.A .
Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus were there to document them in The War Room , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the primary season , including Clinton ’ s surprise second-place finish in New Hampshire , the Gennifer Flowers scandal , and much more .
The film offers an inside look at a campaign through the eyes of those who lived it with the intimacy that we ’ ve come to expect from our campaign documentaries .
How to watch it : The War Room is streaming on HBO Max .
It ’ s also available to rent or purchase on digital platforms including Apple TV and Amazon .
Or , if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political at all ... ... but still taps into how our sensationalized media ecosystem aids in creating some of the problems that plague our politics , here are three worth checking out : • The 2014 film Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an unscrupulous stringer who rushes to the scene of violent incidents in LA to capture them on camera and sell the footage to local TV news stations that are hungry for content .
It ’ s streaming on Netflix .
• Robert Greene ’ s 2016 nonfiction thriller Kate Plays Christine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prepares to “ play ” Christine Chubbuck , the Florida TV reporter who shot herself on air in 1974 .
( Chubbuck ’ s story was reportedly the inspiration for the 1976 film Network . )
It ’ s available to Topic subscribers or to digitally rent or purchase on Amazon .
• Being There , Hal Ashby ’ s 1979 comedy based on Jerzy Kosiński ’ s novel , is a fable about a man named Chance ( Peter Sellers ) who is shut off from the outside world his whole life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one day , he has to leave the house .
Through a series of happy accidents and willful mishearings , Chance becomes a confidant and adviser to the president , who along with the rest of the country adores his “ simple brand of wisdom.
” Being There is available to digitally rent or purchase on platforms including Apple TV and Google Play .
Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we ’ re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won ’ t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

The national political conventions are upon us — and they’ll look very different this year, thanks to the pandemic. (The Democratic National Convention, anchored in Milwaukee but mostly online, will be held from August 17 to 20; the GOP counterpart, after some moving around, is slated to happen both online and in Charlotte from August 24 to 27.)
But while some people’s TV screens will be occupied by convention antics for the next few weeks, I’m much more interested in a movie about a very different kind of political convention: One that’s made up entirely of teenagers. For Boys State, documentarians Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (The Overnighters) traveled to Texas to follow the state’s 2018 summer session of a program called, well, Boys State. (There’s a Girls State program, too.) Administered by the American Legion, Boys State is a gathering of more than a thousand 17-year-old boys who, over the course of one week, form a representative government, complete with party platforms and campaigns. The intent is to learn about and experience firsthand how the American system of government works.
The film is uplifting, funny, thrilling, and revealing. The teens come to Boys State with formed political ideas, but through debate, discussion, and defense of their stances, they learn a lot about what it takes to cultivate consensus and win. And their experiences provide both a microcosmic look into the political process and a hint of the way future politics might unfold, in dismal and strangely hopeful ways.
Earlier this year at Sundance, Boys State won the festival’s top documentary prize and broke the record for the highest acquisition price paid for a documentary, with A24 and Apple buying the film for $12 million. And now, Apple subscribers can watch the film on AppleTV+.
Boys State is less of a “political documentary” and more of an exploration of the political process. And personally, I find process-oriented films far more interesting than polemical political documentaries designed to convince you to vote one way or another.
Luckily, almost as soon as lightweight cameras became readily available in the 1960s, documentarians started hauling them onto convention floors and campaign trails. The result is that there are lots of great documentaries (and mockumentaries) about the American political circus, and I couldn’t possibly name them all. But here are a few important and particularly revealing films that give a peek into what’s changed in the American political process since TV and film became part of campaigns in the 1960s — and what hasn’t.
A trailblazing documentary that gave the nation a new view of the political process
The 1960 film Primary wasn’t just illuminating, it was groundbreaking. The film centers on the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary in which the two candidates were John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. The filmmakers (documentary buffs will recognize the creative team of Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, and D.A. Pennebaker, who together went on to make three more films about Kennedy) used new, lighter equipment that allowed them to more easily follow and capture an intimate view of the candidates, their staff, and their supporters, and in so doing they created a foundational work of “direct cinema” that informed decades of political video-based reporting. And they did it all in a time when television and video images were starting to become a major force in political campaigns.
How to watch it: Primary is streaming on HBO Max. It’s also available to digitally rent or purchase on platforms including iTunes and Amazon.
A revealing look at how punditry morphed into polarized political debate
In 1968, National Review founder William F. Buckley and author and provocateur Gore Vidal — famous for their strong opinions about politics and each other — were recruited by ABC to participate in a series of on-air debates during the major political parties’ conventions. Protests and demonstrations marked both parties’ gatherings that turbulent year. And the debates were famously contentious, too, rocketing ABC to the top of the ratings and solidifying, as this documentary argues, the future of hyperpartisan politics and entertainment-driven, shouting-head TV news punditry. Best of Enemies (directed by Morgan Neville, who also made the hit Fred Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor) recounts the debates and their fallout. The result is exciting but also chilling — an origin story for a long national nightmare.
How to watch it: Best of Enemies is streaming on Hulu for subscribers and for free on Tubi. It’s also available to digitally rent or purchase on services including Apple TV and Google Play.
A ground-level, boundary-pushing view of political conventions and the people who go to them
Four More Years was a groundbreaking, hour-long “guerrilla” TV movie consisting of footage shot during the Republican National Convention in 1972, when “four more years” was the chant from Nixon’s fans. The first independently produced videotape to be broadcast on television, the film focuses on media coverage, protests, and Nixon’s young supporters, with long, revealing interviews. Some people in the film claimed they didn’t know they’d appear, and the crew tried to stay inconspicuous. Four More Years is revealing — and aired on TV two years before Nixon’s resignation.
How to watch it: You can stream Four More Years on Vimeo or at the Media Burn Archive.
A formally inventive demonstration of how Ronald Reagan’s presidency mimicked a three-act TV structure
Was Ronald Reagan the consummate performer? The Reagan Show makes the case that the former actor’s onscreen experience was a perfect training ground for his presidency, chronicling the Reagan administration entirely through news reports and footage shot by the administration itself. It uses Reagan’s work as an actor and one of his common nicknames — “the Great Communicator” — as its jumping-off point, opening with a very prescient-seeming clip of Reagan telling newscaster David Brinkley, at the end of his time in office, that “there have been times in this office when I wonder how you could do the job without having been an actor.”
How to watch it: The Reagan Show is streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on services like Apple TV and Google Play.
A mockumentary miniseries about authenticity and the campaign trail
In 1988, nobody named Jack Tanner was actually vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. But HBO broadcast an 11-episode miniseries about the fictional Tanner anyhow, directed by Robert Altman and written by Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau. Tanner (played by Michael Murphy) is an idealistic Democratic congressman who’s on the campaign trail, accompanied by his 19-year-old daughter Alexandra (Cynthia Nixon). Tanner struggles to distinguish himself against a pack of competitors until his campaign manager T.J. Cavanaugh (Pamela Reed) figures out how to present him through footage of pep talks he gives his staff, caught on the sly. The series blurs reality and fiction; “real” people like Bob Dole, Pat Robertson, Ralph Nader, Gloria Steinem, and many others show up as themselves, and Tanner’s campaign staff is constantly talking about his competitors (including Joe Biden, who was running for president back then, too). It’s a brilliantly satirical series that skewers the process of running for political office more than political positions themselves, and with Altman at the helm, its style feels different from most TV mockumentary series as well.
How to watch it: Tanner ’88 is streaming on the Criterion Channel and on HBO Max. The series is also available to digitally rent or purchase on Amazon.
An exploration of a campaign navigating upset and scandal
By 1992, presidential candidates were used to having cameras follow them around, but even by those standards, Bill Clinton’s campaign was unusually loaded with defining moments that made for great clips. D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus were there to document them in The War Room, which follows strategists James Carville and George Stephanopoulos through the primary season, including Clinton’s surprise second-place finish in New Hampshire, the Gennifer Flowers scandal, and much more. The film offers an inside look at a campaign through the eyes of those who lived it with the intimacy that we’ve come to expect from our campaign documentaries.
How to watch it: The War Room is streaming on HBO Max. It’s also available to rent or purchase on digital platforms including Apple TV and Amazon.
Or, if you want a movie that’s not political at all ...
... but still taps into how our sensationalized media ecosystem aids in creating some of the problems that plague our politics, here are three worth checking out:
The 2014 film Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an unscrupulous stringer who rushes to the scene of violent incidents in LA to capture them on camera and sell the footage to local TV news stations that are hungry for content. It’s streaming on Netflix.
Robert Greene’s 2016 nonfiction thriller Kate Plays Christine follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares to “play” Christine Chubbuck, the Florida TV reporter who shot herself on air in 1974. (Chubbuck’s story was reportedly the inspiration for the 1976 film Network.) It’s available to Topic subscribers or to digitally rent or purchase on Amazon.
Being There, Hal Ashby’s 1979 comedy based on Jerzy Kosiński’s novel, is a fable about a man named Chance (Peter Sellers) who is shut off from the outside world his whole life, except through TV. Then, one day, he has to leave the house. Through a series of happy accidents and willful mishearings, Chance becomes a confidant and adviser to the president, who along with the rest of the country adores his “simple brand of wisdom.” Being There is available to digitally rent or purchase on platforms including Apple TV and Google Play.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-14--The Kamala Harris identity debate shows how America still struggles to talk about multiracial people

This week , presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced that Sen. Kamala Harris would be his running mate .
News outlets heralded the historic nature of her vice presidential nomination , highlighting that she was the first Black woman and also the first Asian American woman to achieve this milestone .
For some people , that last part was news : Wait , Harris is Asian American ?
It prompted much discussion on social and traditional media about Harris ’ s background and biracial identity as the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ new information .
Harris has had a long career in public life : She was a San Francisco district attorney , the California attorney general , is currently a US senator , and ran for the Democratic nomination for president last year .
And yet for years , she has primarily been identified as a Black woman in the public eye , with her South Asian identity rarely mentioned in media coverage until fairly recently ; some of this could be a personal choice , too — a longtime friend of Harris told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had only learned that she was also of South Asian descent after knowing her for 15 years .
While some South Asian voters are upset that this part of her identity has long been downplayed , others are excited about the historic nature of her nomination and what it represents for South Asian American women and women of color .
Meanwhile , some Black voters are debating whether she is truly “ Black enough , ” and far-right critics have already begun pushing birther-style arguments , questioning whether Harris is a US citizen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For multiracial people , defining their racial identity in America is a complex and fraught issue .
And what the energy expended on debating Harris ’ s identity tells us is that we still have a long way to go when it comes to talking about multiracial people in America .
Media coverage has long focused on Harris ’ s Black identity , and discrimination against Black people plays a role in that When Harris won her Senate seat in 2016 , news coverage repeatedly highlighted that she was only the second Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first was Carol Moseley Braun , in 1992 ) .
But her victory that day also represented another milestone that some of those same news outlets did not mention : She was also the first South Asian American person elected to the Senate .
Karthick Ramakrishnan , a professor of public policy at the University of California Riverside and founder of AAPI Data , suggested that one of the reasons Harris might be more commonly portrayed as Black in the media is because of America ’ s history of using the “ one-drop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dates back to slavery .
“ When you had someone who is the son or daughter of a Black person and a white person in the South , they would have been considered a slave and not a free person , and that legacy continued on through Jim Crow .
They would not have the same rights as white people if you had even ‘ one drop ’ of Black blood .
So that legacy is still very powerful ; it affects not only how white people or American society in general think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ folks think of themselves , ” Ramakrishnan told Vox .
Black Americans have historically faced much deeper oppression and systemic racism than Indian Americans , and as Slate ’ s Nitish Pahwa notes , “ the Indian experience is nowhere near as central to American politics and to American life and history as is the Black experience.
” Black Americans also face much deeper injustices than any other racial or ethnic group in America : They ’ re more likely to be killed by police , and at the moment they are disproportionately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the economic crisis .
Growing up Black in America is also a very different experience than growing up Indian in America , as Indians have frequently benefited from “ model minority ” stereotypes — the false belief that Asian Americans are smarter , harder-working , or more successful than other racial and ethnic groups .
It ’ s a trope that has been used as a “ racial wedge ” between Asian Americans and Black Americans .
Diana Sanchez , a Rutgers University professor who studies multiracial identity in America , noted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you have Black ancestry in your background , and this is seen as the lower-status group in society , people will tend to categorize you along those lines.
” Sanchez added that Harris ’ s “ South Asian identity might be perceived as more higher status because of the way discrimination works and some of the positive stereotypes that exist for Asian American groups compared to Black American groups .
So she is likely to be categorized as a Black candidate.
” Much of society , especially white society , can look at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and she will face discrimination as a result of that , regardless of which culture she might choose to identify with — and that has likely played a big role in how she views herself in the world .
In her 2019 autobiography , The Truths We Hold , Harris wrote of how her Indian mother raised her with an appreciation for Indian culture , cooking her daughters Indian food , giving them Indian jewelry , and taking them on trips abroad to visit extended family .
But Harris wrote that she was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perceive Harris and her sister as Black women first and foremost : “ My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters .
She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls , and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident , proud black women.
” Harris also made choices that indicated she was leaning more into her Black identity over time : She attended Howard University , one of the country ’ s most prestigious historically Black colleges , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alpha .
Harris speaks fondly of her time at Howard and often emphasizes her time there in responses to critics who question her Black identity .
But that doesn ’ t mean that her Indian heritage isn ’ t part of her identity , either .
Harris ’ s late mother , Shyamala Gopalan , has long been a prominent part of her story .
Gopalan , a breast cancer researcher who grew up in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu , graduated from college at the age of 19 and immigrated to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ graduate school at the University of California Berkeley .
There she met Donald Harris , a fellow graduate student who later became a professor of economics .
The couple married and had two daughters ; they divorced when Harris was 7 years old , and she and her sister were raised primarily by their mother .
Gopalan was active in the civil rights movement in Berkeley in the 1960s and ’ 70s , marching in protests with her husband and sometimes bringing her daughters .
It is the kind of family story that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America : two immigrants from different countries who both came to the US to pursue higher education , who then raised two Black-South Asian daughters .
But it seems that for some , Harris ’ s uniquely American multiracial identity is less the utopian future we ’ re striving for and more a source of confusion — and sometimes even a justification for racism and suspicion .
The real problem is America still doesn ’ t know how to treat multiracial people Pew Research estimates that 6.9 percent of the adult American population @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predicts that the multiracial population in America will triple by 2060 .
But despite the fact that this identity group is rapidly growing , many Americans still don ’ t know how to talk about multiracial people .
Americans want to be able to easily label people by race and put them into one box .
Harris herself told the Washington Post in 2019 that when she entered politics she felt pressure to define herself : “ When I first ran for office that was one of the things that I struggled with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created , ” Harris told the Post .
“ My point was : I am who I am .
I ’ m good with it .
You might need to figure it out , but I ’ m fine with it , ” she said .
Sanchez says that multiracial people can face what she refers to as double discrimination , where they experience discrimination from both communities they are members of .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ leads to South Asians saying she ’ s not South Asian enough and Black people saying she might not be Black enough .
“ So there ’ s all these different sources of discrimination that are affecting the development of your multiracial identity and your experience with it , and that can make it hard to navigate , ” Sanchez said .
Many South Asian Americans have been excited about Harris ’ s historic nomination .
Nitish Pahwa wrote for Slate that while he was conflicted about Harris ’ s political record , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moment for the South Asian diaspora .
No matter how you spin it , it is progress , a bold assertion of the United States ’ multiculturalism.
” Harris ’ s nomination also has the potential to mobilize South Asian American voters .
A recent Pew analysis of Census Bureau data from 2000 to 2020 found that Asian American voters are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the US electorate , with 11 million Asian Americans eligible to vote this November .
And according to Ramakrishnan , Harris ’ s nomination could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office ; it could also make it harder for the Trump campaign to win support from Indian American voters and donors .
But Harris has also faced detractors .
Indian media has pondered the question of whether Harris is Indian enough , and she has simultaneously been accused of not being “ Black enough.
” In 2019 , accusations swirled on Twitter that Harris was not an “ American Black ” because her father was a Jamaican immigrant , rather than the descendant of slaves ( these rumors later appeared to be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it was still retweeted by Donald Trump Jr. and spread briefly into the mainstream ) .
Similar attacks on Harris ’ s Blackness have already begun anew since her VP nomination , with Newsweek publishing an op-ed pushing birther-style questions about her citizenship and eligibility to be vice president , which a top Trump campaign adviser retweeted .
Harris last year described the accusations of not being Black enough as “ hurtful ” and “ challenging , ” telling journalist Jemele Hill : “ For other people who can ’ t figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ I kinda feel like that ’ s their problem , not mine .
Maybe they need to go back to school to figure it out .
And maybe they need to learn about the African diaspora and maybe they need to learn about a number of other things.
” Carole Boyce-Davies , a professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University , told Vox that the pressure to choose an identity is something that uniquely faced by Black Americans with immigrant families .
“ This is a good time for Americans to think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not raised often in the context of white immigrant identities .
[ White immigrants ] just pass and fade into white identities , and nobody knows what their background is.
” The pressure to choose one identity over the other , Boyce-Davies said , is “ often put on Black subjects , or subjects of color , where people feel you don ’ t have full allegiance to one identity when really we are all a complex set of identities.
” This is , unfortunately , a familiar situation for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then-Senator Barack Obama faced similar questions about whether he was “ Black enough.
” And Kamala Harris , who was then the San Francisco district attorney , spoke up in his defense in a San Francisco Chronicle article in 2007 , saying : “ The conversation highlights the lack of information that people in general have about African American contributions … That is the added significance of Barack Obama .
He is opening up what has been a limited perspective of who is an African American.
” Sanchez explained that multiracial people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and as Obama and Harris have proven , will continue to be challenged .
“ You may choose an identity and people often feel the right to disagree with that , ” she said .
“ There ’ s a lot of research on identity denial , where multiracial people uniquely encounter interactions where someone told them they can ’ t identify a certain way for various reasons , ” Sanchez added .
This is perhaps why Harris herself has at times deflected questions about how she identifies , saying during a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I describe myself ?
I describe myself as a proud American.
” Meanwhile , for South Asian Americans who wish that Harris highlighted her Indian heritage more , it ’ s worth asking why they might feel that way .
The South Asian community has its own long history with colorism and anti-Black racism .
Lakshmi Sridaran , executive director of the nonprofit group South Asian Americans Leading Together ( SAALT ) , suggested that this moment should be seen as “ an opportunity to look at the issue of anti-Black racism in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The deeply seated anti-Black racism in the South Asian community is not often a welcoming place for anyone who identifies as Black .
Confronting that racism should be the priority of the South Asian American community right now especially given the current movement to expose and eliminate police violence.
” Harris shouldn ’ t have to choose between being Black or South Asian How Harris chooses to identify is ultimately a personal decision , and as a biracial person in America , that is undoubtedly an even more nuanced , complex issue for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen it before : When one person from a marginalized group breaks barriers and ascends to new heights , they shoulder the weight of their entire community ’ s expectations .
When a woman runs for president , she is expected to represent all women ; when a Black person runs for office , they ’ re under pressure to represent all Black people .
And when a woman of color runs for office , let alone a multiracial woman who identifies with two major racial groups , she carries the burden of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But Harris is just one person and she can not be all things to all people .
She doesn ’ t need to neatly fit into anybody ’ s box .
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The swearing-in of Kamala Harris as vice president of the United States was a historic moment that celebrated other historic firsts: The first Latinx Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, did the honors as Harris’s hand rested on the Bible that belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice.
In her new role, Harris will break many barriers of her own: She is the first woman, first Black person, and first person of South Asian descent to become the vice president of the United States.
But such boundary-breaking is never without strife. When Harris was nominated in August, her biracial identity prompted much discussion on social and traditional media about her background as the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father. While some South Asian voters were upset that this part of her identity has long been downplayed, others were excited about the historic nature of her nomination and what it represents for South Asian American women and women of color. Meanwhile, some Black voters debated whether she is truly “Black enough,” and far-right critics pushed birther-style arguments, questioning whether Harris is a US citizen and her eligibility for vice president.
My mother always use to say, “Don’t just sit around and complain about things. Do something.” I dearly wish she were here with us this week. pic.twitter.com/RHO2VnlZs4 — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 13, 2020
But her multiracial identity shouldn’t have been new information. Harris has had a long career in public life: She was a San Francisco district attorney, the California attorney general, a US senator, and ran for the Democratic nomination for president last year. And yet for years, she has primarily been identified as a Black woman in the public eye, with her South Asian identity rarely mentioned in media coverage until fairly recently. Some of this could be a personal choice — a longtime friend of Harris’s told the Washington Post in 2019 that he had only learned she was also of South Asian descent after knowing her for 15 years.
For multiracial people, defining their racial identity in America can be a complex and fraught issue because of other people’s assumptions and expectations. And what the energy expended on debating Harris’s identity tells us is that we still have a long way to go when it comes to talking about multiracial people in America.
Media coverage has long focused on Harris’s Black identity, and discrimination against Black people plays a role in that
When Harris won her Senate seat in 2016, news coverage repeatedly highlighted that she was only the second Black woman elected to the Senate (the first was Carol Moseley Braun, in 1992). But her victory that day also represented another milestone that some of those same news outlets did not mention: She was also the first South Asian American person elected to the Senate.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California Riverside and founder of AAPI Data, suggested earlier this year that one of the reasons Harris might be more commonly portrayed as Black in the media is because of America’s history of using the “one-drop rule,” a racist practice that dates back to slavery.
“When you had someone who is the son or daughter of a Black person and a white person in the South, they would have been considered a slave and not a free person, and that legacy continued on through Jim Crow. They would not have the same rights as white people if you had even ‘one drop’ of Black blood. So that legacy is still very powerful; it affects not only how white people or American society in general think of Black folks but also how Black folks think of themselves,” Ramakrishnan told Vox.
Black Americans have historically faced much deeper oppression and systemic racism than Indian Americans, and as Slate’s Nitish Pahwa notes, “the Indian experience is nowhere near as central to American politics and to American life and history as is the Black experience.” Black Americans also face much deeper injustices than any other racial or ethnic group in America: They’re more likely to be killed by police, and at the moment they are disproportionately affected by Covid-19 as well as unemployment and the economic crisis.
Growing up Black in America is also a very different experience from growing up Indian in America, as Indians have frequently benefited from “model minority” stereotypes — the false belief that Asian Americans are smarter, more hardworking, or more successful than other racial and ethnic groups. It’s a trope that has been used as a “racial wedge” between Asian Americans and Black Americans.
Diana Sanchez, a Rutgers University professor who studies multiracial identity in America, noted that research has shown that “when you have Black ancestry in your background, and this is seen as the lower-status group in society, people will tend to categorize you along those lines.” Sanchez added that Harris’s “South Asian identity might be perceived as higher status because of the way discrimination works and some of the positive stereotypes that exist for Asian American groups compared to Black American groups. So she is likely to be categorized as a Black candidate.”
Much of society, especially white society, can look at Harris and perceive her as Black, and she will face discrimination as a result of that, regardless of which culture she might choose to identify with — and that has likely played a big role in how she views herself in the world.
Harris’s background represents a uniquely American melting pot story
In her 2019 autobiography, The Truths We Hold, Harris wrote of how her Indian mother raised her with an appreciation for Indian culture, cooking her daughters Indian food, giving them Indian jewelry, and taking them on trips abroad to visit extended family. But Harris wrote that she was also keenly aware that the world would perceive her and her sister as Black women first and foremost: “My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”
Harris also made choices that indicated she was leaning more into her Black identity over time: She attended Howard University, one of the country’s most prestigious historically Black colleges, and joined a Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. Harris speaks fondly of her time at Howard and often emphasizes her time there in response to critics who question her Black identity.
But that doesn’t mean that her Indian heritage isn’t part of her identity, either. Harris’s late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, has long been a prominent part of her story. Gopalan, a breast cancer researcher who grew up in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, graduated from college at the age of 19 and immigrated to the Bay Area in 1959 to attend graduate school at the University of California Berkeley. There she met Donald Harris, a fellow graduate student who later became a professor of economics.
You can’t know who @KamalaHarris is without knowing who our mother was. Missing her terribly, but know she and the ancestors are smiling today. #BidenHarris2020 pic.twitter.com/nmWVj90pkA — Maya Harris (@mayaharris_) August 12, 2020
The couple married and had two daughters; they divorced when Harris was 7 years old, and Harris and her sister were raised primarily by their mother. Gopalan was active in the civil rights movement in Berkeley in the 1960s and ’70s, marching in protests with her husband and sometimes bringing her daughters. It is the kind of family story that represents an increasingly multicultural, demographically diverse America: two immigrants from different countries who both came to the US to pursue higher education, who then raised two Black and South Asian daughters.
But it seems that for some, Harris’s uniquely American multiracial identity is less the utopian future we’re striving for and more a source of confusion — and sometimes even a justification for racism and suspicion.
The real problem is America still doesn’t know how to treat multiracial people
Pew Research estimates that 6.9 percent of the adult American population is multiracial, and the Census Bureau predicts that the multiracial population in America will triple by 2060. But though this identity group is growing rapidly, many Americans still don’t know how to talk about multiracial people. Americans want to be able to easily label people by race and put them into one box.
Harris herself told the Washington Post in 2019 that when she entered politics, she felt pressure to define herself. “When I first ran for office that was one of the things that I struggled with, which is that you are forced through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created,” she told the Post. “My point was: I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it,” she said.
Sanchez says that multiracial people can face what she refers to as double discrimination, where they experience discrimination from both communities they are members of. In Harris’s case, that leads to South Asians saying she’s not South Asian enough and Black people saying she might not be Black enough. “So there’s all these different sources of discrimination that are affecting the development of your multiracial identity and your experience with it, and that can make it hard to navigate,” Sanchez said.
Many South Asian Americans were excited about Harris’s historic nomination. Pahwa wrote for Slate that while he was conflicted about Harris’s political record, the moment was “undeniably a landmark moment for the South Asian diaspora. No matter how you spin it, it is progress, a bold assertion of the United States’ multiculturalism.”
But Harris has also faced detractors. Indian media has pondered the question of whether Harris is Indian enough, and she has simultaneously been accused of not being “Black enough.” In 2019, accusations swirled on Twitter that Harris was not an “American Black” because her father was a Jamaican immigrant, rather than the descendant of enslaved people (these rumors later appeared to be the work of a coordinated bot campaign, but it was still retweeted by Donald Trump Jr. and spread briefly into the mainstream). Similar attacks on Harris’s Blackness began anew after her VP nomination, with Newsweek publishing an op-ed pushing birther-style questions about her citizenship and eligibility to be vice president, which a top Trump campaign adviser retweeted.
In 2019, Harris described the accusations of not being Black enough as “hurtful” and “challenging,” telling journalist Jemele Hill: “For other people who can’t figure out am I ‘black enough,’ I kinda feel like that’s their problem, not mine. Maybe they need to go back to school to figure it out. And maybe they need to learn about the African diaspora and maybe they need to learn about a number of other things.”
Carole Boyce-Davies, a professor of Africana studies at Cornell University, told Vox earlier this year that the pressure to choose an identity is something uniquely faced by Black Americans with immigrant families. “This is a good time for Americans to think through this question, and particularly since it’s not raised often in the context of white immigrant identities. [White immigrants] just pass and fade into white identities, and nobody knows what their background is.” The pressure to choose one identity over the other, Boyce-Davies said, is “often put on Black subjects, or subjects of color, where people feel you don’t have full allegiance to one identity when really we are all a complex set of identities.”
This is, unfortunately, a familiar situation for multiracial Americans. Over a decade ago, then-Sen. Barack Obama faced similar questions about whether he was “Black enough.” And Harris, who was then the San Francisco district attorney, spoke up in his defense in a San Francisco Chronicle article in 2007, saying: “The conversation highlights the lack of information that people in general have about African American contributions. … That is the added significance of Barack Obama. He is opening up what has been a limited perspective of who is an African American.”
Sanchez explained that multiracial people are often challenged on how they identify — and, as Obama and Harris have proven, will continue to be challenged. “You may choose an identity and people often feel the right to disagree with that,” she said. “There’s a lot of research on identity denial, where multiracial people uniquely encounter interactions where someone told them they can’t identify a certain way for various reasons,” she added.
This is perhaps why Harris has at times deflected questions about how she identifies, saying during a 2019 campaign event, “How do I describe myself? I describe myself as a proud American.”
Meanwhile, for South Asian Americans who wish that Harris highlighted her Indian heritage more, it’s worth asking why they might feel that way. South Asian communities have their own long history with colorism and anti-Black racism. Lakshmi Sridaran, executive director of the nonprofit group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), suggested that Harris’s nomination should be seen as “an opportunity to look at the issue of anti-Black racism in our community.” Sridaran added: “The deeply seated anti-Black racism in the South Asian community is not often a welcoming place for anyone who identifies as Black. Confronting that racism should be the priority of the South Asian American community right now, especially given the current movement to expose and eliminate police violence.”
Harris shouldn’t have to choose to be either Black or South Asian
How Harris chooses to identify is ultimately a personal decision, and as a biracial person in America, that is undoubtedly an even more nuanced, complex issue for her to navigate.
As Ronald R. Sundstrom, author of The Browning of America and the Evasion of Social Justice, wrote for Vox, “Ultimately, it is a mixed person’s prerogative to be fluid in their identity, for them to sometimes hold one, or both, and for that to change over time.”
We’ve seen it before: When one person from a marginalized group breaks barriers and ascends to new heights, they shoulder the weight of their entire community’s expectations. When a woman runs for president, she is expected to represent all women; when a Black person runs for office, they’re under pressure to represent all Black people. And when a woman of color runs for office, let alone a multiracial woman who identifies with two major racial groups, she carries the burden of even more expectations on her shoulders.
But Harris is just one person, and she cannot be all things to all people. She doesn’t need to neatly fit into anybody’s box. And now, her barrier-breaking vice presidency is also a powerful win for representation of multiracial people in America.