The legendary Janet Jackson has joined the growing list of people paying close attention to Vice President Kamala Harris' election. erroneously repeat a previous claim Former President Donald Trump said Harris was somehow not black.
One person conspicuously absent from the ongoing debate over Harris' racial identity is Harris herself.
Harris typically avoids conversations about her race. In response to President Trump's comment that it was only recently, “I became black.” She just said: ”It's the same old and tired scenario. ” She never mentioned her race in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Things changed on Monday.
Harris appeared in “.all the smoke,” On a podcast hosted by a former NBA player, he finally spoke candidly about his race, saying: …My mother said it clearly. She raised two black girls to become proud black women. That was never a question. ”
Of course Harris is black – she father was Jamaican — but she's also Indian-American. My research as a psychology professor who studies how people think about social groups has shown that if Harris defines herself fully by her identity as a Black and Indian American, she will be most positively This suggests that it will be evaluated as
Although it is race, social structurehuman psychology leads people to: believe that race is unique and essential. Somewhat surprisingly, these views extend to how we think about biracial identity. People, even if they themselves are biracial, conceptualize Biracial identity as a “mixture” of inseparable identities. Therefore, biracial people who claim only one race or who identify flexibly based on context are judged to be duplicitous.
Thus, when Harris engages in the common act of “code-switching,” that is, changing the way she speaks across contexts, e.g. Detroit's “Negro Accent” and Pittsburgh's Standard American English Accent When discussing the importance of trade unions.
Research underway in my lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara shows this scientifically. my colleagues, Dr. Brenda Major and doctoral students elizabeth quinn jensenI then asked 371 white American adults about biracial people who first claimed to be biracial and later claimed to be (only) black.
Participants said that the person who made the change had lied about his identity and could not be trusted. Importantly, participants consistently evaluated positively biracial people who asserted their full identity. A second study found the same pattern in a diverse sample of 215 nonwhite American adults, about half of whom were black.
But why did people decide to change their identity?
When Trump called Harris, racial chameleon And Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance jumped on the bandwagon, saying: CNN Supporters of X agreed that Harris was “fundamentally fake” and were keen to point out that they didn't care about her. It's blackthey just don't like that she changes her identity to gain an (unfair) advantage.
Our research asked the question head-on: How important are “unfair” benefits? To test this, people were randomly assigned to read about the same identity change (from biracial to black only) that occurred on a scholarship application or an anonymous survey. Participants believed there was no benefit to switching identities in an anonymous survey.
Nevertheless, biracial people who claimed a black identity in anonymous surveys were rated as less trustworthy as biracial people who changed their identity to obtain scholarships. Again, this pattern holds true for both white and non-white Americans.
The effects of switching identities, or not claiming a full identity, could be particularly problematic for Harris. Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has faced accusations such as: flip flop From all sides (think immigration and fracking, etc.). she has moved to the center She has been struggling to protect her record as vice president since her unsuccessful bid for president in 2020. distinguish myself from Joe Biden. Her racial identity may be interpreted as another means of flip-flopping.
Cultivating a reputation for trustworthiness is especially important as election day approaches, and the outcome is truly at stake. Undecided voters will have a significant impact on the final outcome. But for voters who are still undecided, less involvement with politics And please rely on me Emphasize likability over problems. Since credibility is a key component of likability, Harris cannot afford to appear untrustworthy.
Of course, Harris isn't the only one in this race. Trump easily loses the battle to be seen as trustworthy, consistently false claims Because of the big issues (the 2020 election “Stolen”) Even seemingly meaningless things (crowd size Harris' rally). At this point, Trump is a household name and people know what he's like. He doesn't want to ingratiate himself with voters with his rhetoric, and his main strategy for dealing with personal criticism is to hurl even harsher criticism at others.
But when it comes to the battle of credibility and likeability, Harris can take notes from “All the Smoke” co-host Matt Barnes if he's playing to win, but he says he is proud of both his Italian and black heritage. Kamala Harris' candidacy is historic. She should openly define herself as the first Indian American and black woman to seek our nation's highest office as a major party candidate.
Zoe Liberman is a professor of psychology and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a public voice fellow at The OpEd Project.
