The Wikipedia War Over Kamala Harris’s Race

The Wikipedia War Over Kamala Harris’s Race – The Atlantic:

The battles over Harris’s Wikipedia page played out primarily over the specific term African American. That debate began in earnest last week, when Harris was only a much-discussed potential running mate.

“How exactly can you describe someone with south-asian ancestry as ‘African American’?” one anonymous user wrote. “Does this term now mean ‘black’, ‘dark skinned’, or simply ‘non-white’? Please, this is disrespectful to people from the Indian sub-continent who have their own very distinct identities.”

This is where the rise of identity politics has us today: People argue over social constructs and grant them outsized importance. Will anyone anywhere change their vote if Kamala Harris is not African-American but rather Asian-American or Jamaican-American or Indian-American? 

With Wikipedia’s article protection preventing them from making the edits themselves, a series of mostly anonymous users instead asked for Harris to be described as something other than African-American:

“Some information is wrong. She is not a black. Her mother is Indian, her father is Latino. She is not either black nor native American.”

“She is Asian American. India, where her mother immigrated from, is part of Asia. Jamaica, where her father immigrated from, is part of North America.”

“Harris is the second African American woman is wrong, she is Jamaican / Indian.”

“Kamala Harris is not African American as this states. Her mother is Indian and her father Jamaican.”

“Change ‘first African American’ to ‘Jamaican American’. She is not African American because her father is from Jamaica and her mother is Indian. There is no Africa there.”

My kids are of Scotch-Irish descent, but the last of the ancestors came to America 1800s. (The first in the 1600s.) I mean, really, they’re mutts, like most Americans. If they want to acknowledge that heritage, I don’t think anyone should get in a twist about it. I don’t know Harris’ family genealogy, but if she calls herself African American presumably she’s got some claim to it, however distant. 

But even if she didn’t, I’m not sure it makes much difference or that it should.