Democrats defend Harris from racists

Sen. Kamala Harris, one of only two black presidential candidates in a field of two dozen, had a historymaking moment on the debate stage Thursday night when she challenged former Vice President Joe Biden over racial issues.

But as the reaction to her debate performance poured in, so did the racist attacks on social media, where some accused the California Democrat of not being black enough, and others suggested she was not really American.

On Twitter, some commenters suggested Harris was unfairly portraying herself as African American because she is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. By Saturday, Harris’ campaign spokeswoman had retweeted nearly a dozen comments and articles defending her boss, and Harris’ 2020 Democratic challengers forcefully condemned the attacks on social media.

“This stuff is really vile and everyone should speak out against it,” Lily Adams, Harris’s spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter.

“The attacks against @KamalaHarris are racist and ugly,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted shortly after. “We all have an obligation to speak out and say so. And it’s within the power and obligation of tech companies to stop these vile lies dead in their tracks.”

“@KamalaHarris doesn’t have (expletive) to prove,” tweeted Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.,

President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted, and then deleted, an alt-right commentator named Ali Alexander, stating, “Kamala Harris is implying she is descended from American Black Slaves. She’s not. She comes from Jamaican Slave Owners. That’s fine. She’s not an American Black. Period.”

In sharing that message to his millions of followers, Trump Jr. tweeted: “Is this true? Wow.”

“This is the same type of racist attacks his father used to attack Barack Obama,” Adams said. “It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”