Kamala Harris's Blackness Isn't Up for Debate

[yuiyoshida]

I would never have put Snoop and Tupac Shakur on the list of things that could potentially harm Senator Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. But this week, two of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time unwillingly played a part in the latest attack on Harris’s blackness, which came after the California Democrat’s appearance on the popular morning-radio show The Breakfast Club.

Harris engaged in a 40-minute-plus, wide-ranging conversation with the hosts Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee, and DJ Envy, detailing an agenda focused on issues disproportionately affecting African Americans: the staggering rate at which black women are dying in childbirth, mass incarceration, and poverty.

Unfortunately for Harris, her stances on these matters were drowned out by a dumb headline. Call it #AllEyezOnMeGate. Charlamagne asked Harris whether she’d ever smoked marijuana. She admitted that she’d smoked in college—and did indeed inhale. At some point, Envy asked Harris about her favorite music. But before she could respond, Charlamagne jokingly asked Harris about what she liked to listen to when she imbibed. Harris laughed off Charlamagne’s question and instead told Envy that some of her favorite artists were Snoop and ’Pac. She also mentioned her affinity for Cardi B.

But when the story went viral, the takeaway was that Harris had smoked marijuana while listening to ’Pac and Snoop. With the help of the typical rush to judgment on social media, and some masterful framing by Fox & Friends, a fake controversy was born. The claim was that Harris lied about her weed experience to curry favor with the black community.

Had the critics bothered to watch her entire Breakfast Club interview, they would have seen just how foolish these assumptions were. But then again, since Harris announced her decision to run for president, the attacks on her blackness have only seemed to gain momentum. Why would it change now?

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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/kamala-harris-didnt-lie-about-listening-snoop-dogg/582982/?utm_source=twb