Janet Jackson’s Lies About Kamala Harris’ Race

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Janet Jackson showed how misinformed she is about Kamala Harris’ identity when she repeated a false claim about the Democratic nominee’s race in a recent interview with The Guardian.

“Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian,” Jackson said in response to reporter Nosheen Iqbal’s remark about America possibly voting in its first Black female president. (For the record, Harris is both Black and Indian.)

Jackson seemingly doubled down on the mischaracterization when she repeated another falsehood she said she’d heard about the vice president: “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.”

It’s unclear who exactly “told” Jackson these untrue details about Harris, and the singer has been unavailable to clarify her comments as she mourns the death of her brother Tito Jackson. A man named Mo Elmasri, claiming to be Jackson’s manager, issued an “apology” on her behalf Sunday, telling BuzzFeed the singer made remarks about Harris “based on misinformation” and that she apologized for “any confusion caused.” But Jackson’s representatives later stated that Elmasri was not, in fact, her manager, and was not authorized to speak on her behalf.

The whole sequence of events left fans baffled, but what’s especially troubling was Jackson propagating right-wing lies of the sort spewed by former President Donald Trump.

Regardless of whether Jackson was aware of what she was doing, it shows how celebrities can play a dangerous role in the age of misinformation, especially amid the current election cycle. However, there’s blame to go around for the singer’s misstep. She clearly got her info from the wrong place, and the source of those lies is what’s most important here.

Some may remember when Trump spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists convention this summer. While on stage with a panel of Black reporters, he incorrectly claimed that Harris had “all of a sudden” become a Black person, and falsely suggested that she’d misled voters about her race. Trump questioned the vice president’s identity again during their first presidential debate on Sept. 10. These are just a few of many instances where he and…