by liberal japonicus
Reading thru all the things on Kamala (pronounced 'comma-la', the name comes from Sanskrit) and going down rabbit holes. Didn't know much about the Indian-American diaspora, except that in addition to Harris, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal (and Dinesh D'Souza, gross) were part of it. I also, as is my wont, tend to be sarcastic with things that bother me, so when I read 'Asian American' plopped into an article about Harris, I think of the joke about the difficulty of telling Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping apart because everyone knows that all Asians look alike, so I resisted reading up any speculation about the pick, but now that's she has been chosen, I'll read stuff even if they have 'first Asian American' whatever. (I have to go back and see what 'South Asian' vs 'Asian' correlates with in these articles)
I get the impression that a lot of articles have emphasized Harris as a Black American, but it is striking to me that it is the same as Obama, parents who divorced, the candidate raised by the non-black mother, yet the emphasis is on the father, an emphasis that Harris makes herself. I think I wrote something about that in discussing a bio of Ann Durham, Obama's mother. I'm waiting, with bated breath, for Harris to be accused in a similar way to Obama, that he was black-ish rather than black (though that may be a rhetorical pretzel too far for some) so I want to emphasize that my interest into Harris' Indian roots shouldn't be taken as negating her black identity. I also think that as a general rule, men are more boxed into an identity than women, which also has some bearing here.
A common thread in a lot of left pubs that I don't really care for (I'm looking at you Jacobin) is that Harris is simply another neo-liberal cog in the machine. Still, I feel like the issues raised by George Floyd's execution are elided with the Harris pick because of her path. Is this indicative of the campaign's take on BLM? Hell if I know, though if this bothers you, you may want to take a look at this article. But I think that the history of the Indian diaspora actually gives us some insight as to why Harris traveled the road she did.
Wikipedia is a good starting point with Indian Americans and I didn't know about United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind.
Bhagat Singh Thind had come to the United States in 1913 for higher studies after obtaining a bachelor's degree in India. He enlisted in the United States Army, became a Sergeant and served in the First World War. He was discharged honorably with his character designated as "excellent". Thind was granted citizenship in Washington state in July 1918 but his citizenship was rescinded in just four days. He received his citizenship for the second time in Oregon state in November 1920 after the Bureau of Naturalization was unsuccessful in its efforts to stall it in Oregon court. The case then reached the Supreme Court, where Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, a California attorney and fellow immigrant, represented Thind.
The arguments offered on behalf of Thind were also interesting
Thind argued that Indo-Aryan languages are indigenous to the Aryan part of India in the same way that Aryan languages are indigenous to Europe, highlighting the linguistic ties between Indo-Aryan speakers and Europeans, as most European languages including English are similar to Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi.Since the Ozawa v. United States court case had just decided that the meaning of white people for the purposes of the Court were people who were members of the Caucasian race, Thind argued that he was a white person by arguing that he was a member of the Caucasian race. Thind argued using "a number of anthropological texts" that people in Punjab and other Northwestern Indian states belonged to the "Aryan race", and Thind cited scientific authorities such as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach as classifying Aryans as belonging to the Caucasian race. Thind argued that, although some racial mixing did indeed occur between the Indian castes, the caste system had largely succeeded in India at preventing race-mixing. Thind argued that by being a "high-caste, of full Indian blood" he was a "Caucasian" according to the anthropological definitions of his day.
Thind's lawyers argued that Thind had a revulsion to marrying an Indian woman of the "lower races" when they said, "The high-caste Hindu regards the aboriginal Indian Mongoloid in the same manner as the American regards the Negro, speaking from a matrimonial standpoint." Thind's lawyers argued that Thind had a revulsion to marrying a woman of the Mongoloid race. This would characterize Thind as being both white and someone who would be sympathetic to the existing anti-miscegenation laws in the United States.
Kuromatsu, it ain't. Interestingly, Japanese-Americans are often touted as a model minority, but in some senses, Indo Americans would probably be a better example.
The population of Indo-Americans (also categorised as East Indians, Asian Indians and American Indians) in the US is 2.4 million, the second-largest immigrant group after Mexicans. It is also the most successful, with the median household income at $107,000 – almost twice that of American-born households. Indian immigrants are more likely to be enrolled in higher education, to participate in the labour force and twice as likely to be employed in management, business, science and the arts as the overall population.link
And of course, there were the 'Hindus for Trump', though the demographic is Democratic leaning. However, this conservative streak reminded me of this Guardian article explaining why British Indians are so prominent in the Conservative party.
So, when we talk about Harris' path via law school and California Attorney General, I feel like it was determined in part by accomodation rather than reaction, more so than Obama's path.
Some other links about Harris that might be of interest
Atlantic on how Harris represents a new democratic coalition
Harris is a demographic bridge between Biden and the modern Democratic Party, but she’s not nearly as much of an ideological bridge. Though she ran sharply to the left during the early stages of her unsteady presidential bid, her record, like Biden’s, is fundamentally moderate.
Forbes on conservative attempts to undercut Harris as a Black candidate
But some conservatives are piling on the criticism and have sought to refute claims that Harris would be the nation’s first African-American vice president and saying that her heritage does not trace back to slavery.
This article with some interesting details about the mixed race demographic and introduced me to the ADOS movement
The ADOS movement includes supporters as wide-ranging as Harvard philosophy professor Cornel West, who has said that it is giving working-class Black people a voice, and white conservative political commentator Ann Coulter. But the movement has many detractors, some of whom view it as divisive at best and xenophobic at worst. Others have argued that it ignores the long history of African Americans with immigrant roots, including black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who was Jamaican, and Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, whose mother was Grenadian.
Here's a dissection of West's support of ADOS. Quick rule of thumb, if you are ever grouped with Ann Coulter, don't walk, run to get out of that space.
The Guardian had a panel give responses, I like Jill Filipovic's take, and this is a bit more detailed about the challenges that face women in general on the issues of crime and punishment
This NYTimes about Trump Jr's quickly deleted tweet, which seems to indicate a level of panic with messaging.
“Don’s tweet was simply him asking if it was true that Kamala Harris was half-Indian because it’s not something he had ever heard before,” the spokesman, Andy Surabian, said at the time. He added that the tweet was deleted after it was recognized that followers were “misconstruing” its intent.
And an interesting note about Biden and Harris not graduating from Ivy League schools.
All these links are post selection, one thing to be careful about is to identify the articles that were raising issues with Harris during her presidential campaign. As shocked as all of you may find this, some people tend to makd arguments not because they believe them but because they want their supported candidate to win.
Anyway, a thread for your Kamala Harris thoughts.
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