Janet Jackson questions Kamala Harris' ancestry by claiming she's not black and is showered with criticism: She's irrelevant

Janet Jackson has stirred controversy with a claim regarding Vice President Kamala Harris's racial background. He questioned whether Harris should be identified as Black, stating that the Vice President has a white father. This comment raised eyebrows, especially as it misrepresents Harris's family history.

"Well, you know what they supposedly said?" she told the Guardian.

"She's not black. That's what I heard. That she's Indian.

"Her father's white. That's what I was told. I mean, I haven't watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white."

Jackson, deservedly, has come in for criticism for her irrelevant and odd input.

"This is why she's irrelevant and leeching off of her brothers' success," read some reaction to her Trump-like nonsense.

"Janet, you know better than to believe that nonsense... especially after all the race controversies Michael went through...," was another.

"That's what I heard' is the new way of saying 'i believe the stupid, unsubstantiated s-t people tell me," was an excellent other.

Harris's background

Born in 1964, Harris is the daughter of Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher from India, and Donald J. Harris, a Black Jamaican economist.

The couple married in the early 1960s and raised Kamala and her younger sister Maya before separating in the early 1970s. Donald Harris, now retired, is a professor emeritus at Stanford University, while Dr. Gopalan passed away in 2009.

Trump had questioned Harris' identity

Jackson's remarks have drawn comparisons to previous public statements that questioned Harris' identity, including comments by former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election cycle. Trump had suggested that Harris's identity was opportunistic, questioning her racial background in a public forum.

"She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage," he said.

"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?

"I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went - she became a black person. I think somebody should look into that too."