The US vice president appeared to agree with a proposal for race-based legislation at a panel discussion in 2019
US Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to support special laws for black Americans during a panel discussion she participated in during the 2020 presidential campaign, according to a video that has gained traction on social media this week.
In the clip, posted to her YouTube account in November 2019, Harris can be seen sitting down with a panel of black voters in a South Carolina barbershop. During the conversation, one of the participants suggested that Harris should focus on passing laws that specifically address the issues of the black community.
“We have to be specifically targeting to help those people,” the man said, adding that “America, you did this to these people. You should write laws for these people.”
“Don’t group us in with everybody because everybody… it didn’t happen to everybody,” he said.
Harris smiled and eagerly nodded throughout the man’s remarks. “That’s right,” she said before going on to talk about how black families and black neighborhoods had been “redlined” – a practice when people are denied financial services based on where they live.
Many in the comments to the video ridiculed Harris, calling it “crazy” to even consider enacting special laws for a particular race.
Some also pointed to the Democratic presidential candidate’s own history of contradictory statements regarding her ethnicity. Harris, who was born in California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, is often described as the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president in US history. However, before being elected to the US Senate in 2016, she was also often described as Indian-American.
Last month, former US President Donald Trump also suggested that he was unsure of Harris’ racial identity. “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” he said at a panel interview.
“I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?” he said, going on to accuse her of respecting neither race.
Harris responded to Trump at the time by accusing her opponent of peddling “divisiveness and disrespect,” while White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Trump’s remarks “repulsive and insulting.”
