Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Admixture

According to FiveThirtyEight's Perry Bacon, Jr.:

[Kamala] Harris is the first Asian American and the first Black woman in American history to be a general election candidate for president or vice president for either of the two major political parties.

I find his description of her interesting because this is the first time I've ever heard someone being described as both Black and something else, at the same time. President Obama, for instance, was mixed, and I'd only ever seen him described as Black, never as European American. Later, Mr. Bacon says: "I don’t want to downplay Harris’s Indian American roots." Normally, in cases of mixed race individuals, the non-Black part of their ancestry isn't downplayed; it's completely ignored, so it will be worth watching to see if this is something that catches on.

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