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Republicans’ outrage over Kamala Harris’ birthplace exposes a glaring double standard

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2 years ago

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Republicans’ outrage over Kamala Harris’ birthplace exposes a glaring double standard

In what counts as one of the bizarre attacks of this year’s presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, stands accused of wrongly characterizing herself as a “daughter of Oakland.” According to an investigative report in The New York TimesHarris was born in the adjacent Berkeley, California.

Jesse Watters at Fox News went so far as to hold up Harris’ birth certificate with that Berkeley home address listed. As awful as that was, Watters using Harris’ birth certificate as some kind of gotcha was not only a reminder of the “birther” attacks on President Barack Obama, but it also revealed what this inquisition is really about: portraying Harris as sneaky, inauthentic and unworthy of trust.

Watters using Harris’ birth certificate revealed what this inquisition is really about: portraying Harris as sneaky, inauthentic and unworthy of trust.

Americans give a lot of attention to where a candidate is from and presidential candidates spend a lot of time emphasizing where they’re from — or at least emphasizing the place they’ve chosen to say they’re from. For example, as a candidate, and even as a president, Joe Biden has rarely missed an opportunity to mention his scrappy Scranton, Pennsylvania, roots. Yes, that’s where he was born, but Biden’s family relocated to Delaware when he was in elementary school. It’s likely that relatively few people know which cities in that state he called home as a child and teenager, but we know Biden eventually ended up in Wilmington where many residents affectionately refer to him as “Delaware Joe.”

All politicians, Harris included, are aware that the question of where they’re from is more about identity, or at least the identity we want to project, than geography. Home isn’t just a matter of where we say we’re from, it’s also about where others decide it makes the most sense for us to be from. If I tell you I’m from Detroit, then that conjures up not just associations, but expectations and explanations that are different than what they’d be if I told you I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. Geographers, city planners and urban designers call this place-based identity. Politicians call this useful.

As someone who was born in the Bay Area and then lived in Evanston, Illinois; Madison, Wisconsin; and MontrealCanada, before returning to the East Bay, there are a lot of places for Harris to gesture toward as potential homes and homes-away-from home. She chose Oakland.

Harris supporters like that she’s the celebrated daughter of a city we want to root for, too. They like the association for the same reason that her critics want to question it: it is politically useful, just like Biden’s beginning in gritty Scranton, or her running mate Tim Walz’s in small-town Nebraska. After all, the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland in 1966 and organized a host of social services for low-income families such as legal aid, health clinics and free breakfast programs for kids. At least since then, Oakland has become synonymous with Black resistance, racial pride and self-reliance. It kind of reminds us of the underdog Harris says she is.

Barack Obama always put his Kansas roots (where his mother grew up) alongside his Hawaiian birthplace even as he claimed the South Side of Chicago as a home.  Jeb Bush and George W. Bush shedding their ties to coastal Maine helped them get elected the governors of Florida and Texas respectively, and the Texan was twice elected president. Donald Trump is from Queens but has always wanted to be seen as the “king of Manhattan.”

Rightfully or not, a candidate’s hometown ends up symbolizing something profound about the individual, what the person stands for and, as importantly, whom the candidate will fight for. It’s why some of Harris’ Republican critics insist she was “raised in Canada.”

Harris may be fudging things slightly when she calls herself “the daughter of Oakland,” but she shouldn’t be singled out for it. Many people who grew up next to a big city call that bigger city home. Instead of asking whether it’s technically true that she’s from Oakland and whether she ought to be corrected for slighting Berkeley, we ought to be asking whether we put more demands on Black candidates to authenticate who they say they are, and whether their answers are more closely scrutinized.

Instead of asking whether it’s technically true that she’s from Oakland, we ought to be asking whether we put more demands on Black candidates to authenticate who they say they are.

By all indications, Oakland loves Harris and claims her back and doesn’t care where she went to primary school.  Republicans who profess to be upset about it are, in keeping with Trump’s insulting attack on her identity, suggesting that she is falsely trying to claim Blackness.  When she’s only doing what all politicians do: naming a place of origin that signals her politics. Yes, Harris gains bona fides from being associated with a city that symbolizes Black working class grit and activism, and not the image of white elitism and radicalism associated with San Francisco but especially Berkeley.

But JD Vance made a name for himself by highlighting his Appalachian roots and using that to illustrate how far he’s come even though Appalachia isn’t where he’s actually from.

Candidates such as Harris and Obama are subjected to more questions about their origins not because politicians as a rule give wholly truthful and clear declarations about their origins, but because they’re seen as not belonging in the first place.

Writer Zadie Smith”https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/02/26/speaking-in-tongues-2/” target=”_blank”> summed it up nicely in 2008 when she said that many of the public’s reservations about Obama stemmed from their inability to pinpoint where exactly he was from and who exactly he represented. To these people, he appeared too chameleonlike, too skilled at speaking to the many faces of American society. Smith said it was less a matter of Obama changing himself depending on his location, and more that he was from more than one place all at the same time, none truer or fuller than another.

“Where are you from?” is a loaded question that on its surface seems simple. The answer isn’t clear-cut for me, and it isn’t clear-cut for many of us. Are we talking about where I was born or where I grew up? What do we say if our family moved around a lot or if we spent some formative years abroad? We might answer differently depending on who’s asking, why we think they’re asking or what we feel comfortable sharing.

As for Harris, it’s not that important where home is according to her birth certificate. She had no say in that matter. Where she chooses to say she’s from tells us a lot more.

Robyn Autry

Robyn Autry is a sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Public Life at Wesleyan University. She is the author of “Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the U.S. and South Africa.”

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‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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22 hours ago

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September 6, 2026

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‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

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3 days ago

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September 4, 2026

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President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”

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Missouri Supreme Court pauses GOP gerrymander, likely netting Democrats 1 House seat

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3 days ago

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September 3, 2026

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Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.

The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.

Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.

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