On Multiracial Identity Politics, Kamala Harris, and the US Presidential Election 'choice'

August 22, 2020So, Joe Biden has finally picked his running mate. The Biden-Harris ticket, composed of the previous vice president of the United States, and a female, half Blackamerican, half Indian-American Senator from California, is officially the only chance for an America that isn’t run by the Trump administration. And already, the criticisms are beginning when it comes to Harris – even by self-proclaimed American progressives, amid accusations that Harris is deceptively using racial identity politics on the other hand. It’s a strange situation to behold, even – perhaps particularly – for a non-American, mixed race Brit, who is partly from that region where America’s track record has been particularly bad over the last few decades, the Arab world. But it bears at least the beginning of an exploration - because this won’t be the last time such an issue does come up, as multiracial identities are going to become more and more talked about in a very public identity sense. There have been an increasing number of people attack Harris for being, let’s say, inconsistent when it comes to her emphasis of her different ethnic identities. She’s Blackamerican, they say, when it’s convenient for political purposes; she’s Indian-American, they say, when it’s convenient for other political purposes. Hence, she’s not just engaging in ‘identity politics’ – she’s worse than that. She’s an identity merchant. It’s a bizarre critique, but not one I am unfamiliar with. Because it simply betrays a lack of understanding of how people of mixed race – who actually hold those identities as important to them – engage in the public arena. As someone of mixed race myself, I know this well. Now, there’s a very legitimate critique of identity politics in the first place – and I’m personally sensitive to it. But all too often, critics of identity politics are the very people that do not need to worry about the ‘ethnic penalty’ that exists in the public arena – and as such, they have the luxury to ignore or disavow identity politics. Is Harris engaged in ‘identity politics’? She probably is, and that’s hardly unique. What seems to be more rare is that she delves into more than one type – Blackamerican identity politics as well as Indian-American identity politics. But while it may be rarer than your typical politician, it is as legitimate as the identity politics of someone who has only one public ethnic identity. Because that is what she is. Her language of identity is plural, rather than singular; because she, indeed, quite legitimately, has plural identities. Not every mixed-race individual embraces those different aspects of their multiracial background. You barely saw, for example, Barack Obama do so – even though he is half white. But that says less about Obama, and more about the nature of how race is perceived in America. Even if he wanted to simultaneously identify as ‘white’ in today’s America, he couldn’t have done so. But as multiracial couples increase as a percentage of the American population and elsewhere in the West, their children and grandchildren are going to insist on the right to uphold those plural identities. There are going to be many reasons to criticise Kamala Harris – but her being honest about her complex multi-ethnic background isn’t one of them.