American Lotus
The Cultural Strengths of Kamala Harris
“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. So I don’t know ̶ Is she Indian? Or is she Black?”
These were Donald Trump’s caustic words about Kamala Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention on July 31. It was a calculated remark. While many in the Black and Indian-American communities accept her dual heritage, some don’t, seeing in her too much of one ethnicity, not enough of the other. Trump was driving the wedge further.
When Biden picked Harris as his running mate in 2020, her maternal uncle Balachandran “Balu” Gopalan anticipated attacks from Trump. But he was confident that his feisty niece, the daughter of his equally gutsy sister, would not take Trump’s pangas (ego-fueled tantrums) lying down. In this instance, Harris denied Trump the oxygen he craved. She did not directly counter this panga, addressing it indirectly while speaking to the black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho in Houston: “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us — they are an essential source of our strength.”
