On February 12, 2019, former CNN host Don Lemon and The Grio's White House correspondent April Ryan got into a heated debate on their show about whether then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was “black” or “African-American.”
Former President Donald Trump has come under fire this week for saying in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists on Wednesday that Harris has always identified as Indian but suddenly wants to be “known as black.” Lemon argued in 2019 that Harris is black but not African-American because of her Jamaican ancestry on her paternal side, while Ryan vehemently argued that Harris could be both a black person and an African-American woman.
“She's a black woman!” Ryan said. “Her father is a black man from Jamaica.”
“Okay, I guess that's true,” Lemon said. “But is she African-American? No, she's not. But is she African-American? No, she's not. There's nothing wrong with that. Nobody's trying to take anything away from her. I think you fall into that trap. All she had to do was say, I'm black, I'm not African-American, and that's it.”
Flashback: Former CNN hosts Don Lemon and April Ryan had a heated debate over whether Kamala Harris is African-Americanpic.twitter.com/yc3c8gPsZR
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Ryan argued that Harris could be of African descent because many Africans landed in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.
“Jamaica is not America,” Lemon interjected.
“But she's a black woman. She was born here,” Ryan said.
Mr Lemon then accused Mr Ryan of shifting the subject to Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who was born in Canada to a Cuban father and has US birthright – something Mr Ryan tried to call “hypocrisy”. (RELATED: Flashback: Kamala Harris repeatedly lied to America about Biden's declining cognitive abilities)
Harris tried to deny reports that she is not African-American. exterior On the February 11, 2019 episode of The Breakfast Club, one of the hosts Quote The meme that Harris is “not African-American” because her parents are from Jamaica and India and she spent her high school years in Canada.
“I don't think they understand what black people are,” Harris responded. “I'm not going to spend my time educating people on what black people are because, frankly, I'm focused right now on, for example, the work that I'm working on, the LIFT Act, which is about lifting people out of poverty.”
“I'm black and I'm proud to be black,” Harris added. “I was born black and I'll die black… and I'm not going to make excuses for anybody because they don't understand.”
Harris' White House official biography She touts herself as the “first Black American” and “first South Asian American” to serve as vice president.
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