MY TAKE
DEAR KAMALA, PLEASE STOP PLAYING THE RACE CARD
Image courtesy: The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris.
Two of my of old school friends – a Coorg and a Parsi – are used to being teased about the fact that all Coorgs and Parsis claim to be related to Field Marshal Cariappa (the first Indian commander-in-chief of the Indian Army) and Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw (who served as the Chief of the Army Staff ) respectively.
I’ve been thinking of that as I see the hullabaloo over Joe Biden’s running mate. Oh, how we embrace the successful!
Even those who had to go beyond our shores to find that success.
A Nobel laureate is immediately feted as Indian, though he conducted his research in the UK. As is another, the bulk of whose work was in the US.
So now Blacks and Indians are celebrating the ascension of Kamala Harris to possible vice-president. Heck, Canadians are not exempt with our media replaying her Montreal school connection. Quite disregarding the fact that she dismisses that period in her life in a few short lines in her biography, The Truths We Hold.
With her mother Shyamala at the Chinese New Year parade in 2007. Image credit: The Truths We Hold.
Her mother, a respected cancer researcher, was offered an opportunity to teach and conduct research in Montreal, but 12-year-old Kamala wasn’t happy with the relocation.
...the thought of moving away from sunny California in February, the middle of the school year, to a French-speaking foreign city covered in twelve feet of snow was distressing, to say the least.
Perfectly natural response from a pre-teen.
Then there’s this:
I used to joke that I felt like a duck, because all day long at our new school I’d be saying “Quoi? Quoi? Quoi?” (“What? What? What?”).
And that’s about it. All that is there to “celebrate” her Canadian connection.
In the book, there are photographs of her at various ages – as a baby, toddler, little girl and young woman – with extended family.
With her paternal grandfather in Jamaica; with her great grandmother in Jamaica; with her paternal grandmother in Jamaica; with uncle Freddy in Harlem; and with Auntie Chris, uncle Freddy and aunt Mary at a campaign event in San Francisco.
There’s one with her maternal grandfather in Zambia; another with her maternal grandparents when they visited the US in 1972; and one with her aunts Chinni, aunt Sarala, and uncle Subash on her wedding day in 2014.
Not one image of her in India.
Young Kamala with her paternal grandmother Beryl in Jamaica. Image credit: The Truths We Hold.
That’s not to say she didn’t visit India annually, walking the streets of her mother’s hometown as is now being described gleefully in the Indian press, but it does give you pause for thought.
She doesn’t pronounce her name like an Indian, either, telling readers it is “comma-la” like the punctuation. Except that an Indian, and one of South Indian ancestry at that, would say “Come-a-la”.
Harris identifies as a Black American in the book. She doesn’t deny her Indian ancestry, but the leaning towards her father’s family, even after her parents’ divorce is clear.
There are hints in the book as to why that may be so.
I think, for my mother, the divorce represented a kind of failure she had never considered. Her marriage was as much an act of rebellion as an act of love. Explaining it to her parents had been hard enough. Explaining the divorce, I imagine, was even harder. I doubt they ever said to her, “I told you so,” but I think those words echoed in her mind regardless.
Did the Indian community distance itself from the young Shyamala Gopalan who married the Jamaican Donald Harris, a brilliant economist? She doesn’t say so in the book, and I may be reading too much into the following lines, but...
From almost the moment she arrived from India, she chose and was welcomed to and was enveloped in the black community. It was the foundation of her new American life.
All this claiming her as ours misses the point. Which is that while she may have taken to wishing the Indian community Happy Ganesh Chaturthi (she did!), it is a stellar track record that brings her to this point in her journey.
Seeing her as a product of her race not only diminishes that, it is dangerous. Because then she might fall between the cracks – not Black enough for one, not Indian enough for the other.
I received an email from They See Blue, wanting us to help get the word out about their support for “Kamala Devi Harris for Vice President”.
Kamala! Devi! It doesn’t get more Indian than that.
“They See Blue is proud to learn Kamala Devi Harris has been named Vice Presidential Nominee of the Democratic Party this November...We at They See Blue are proud of Kamala for embracing both sides of her heritage and showcasing how integral the South Asian community is to the fabric of this country.
“As an Indian American woman, I am ecstatic to see Kamala selected. I hope Indian Americans show their support for this ticket by coming out to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket in droves. Turnout in our community has not been as high in the past, and I hope this election changes that! It is very inspiring to see a woman of color and of Indian heritage step up to the national stage in a leadership role. I sure hope it inspires other women and girls like my daughter to dream big, take chances and step up!” wrote Sangeeta Ramakrishnan of They See Blue.
Both sides of her heritage? One would assume they mean Indian and American? Because if they were being super inclusive and meant Indian and Jamaican, would that render her not American enough?
And so, a cautionary note for Harris herself:
Don’t dilute your message. Run on your work, on what you stand for, on who you are. Not on what others suddenly see you as. Not because you tick certain boxes.
Because win or lose, you’ll give millions of little girls of mixed heritage someone to look up to.
Kamala Harris is more than the sum of her parts. And that’s something to celebrate.
• The Truths We Hold is published by Penguin Press, $40.