A July 21 Instagram post featuring Vice President Kamala Harris garnered significant attention. The post included several claims about Harris, such as:
- “Raised in Canada. Not California.”
- “Not African American – Indian & Jamaican”
- “Imprisoned over 2000 Black (sic) for minor drug charges and held them past their release date for free country labor resource. In some respect, slave labor.”
This post received over 1,000 likes within a day and something similar was also widely shared on Facebook.
Fact Check:
The claims made in the post was evaluated and found to be partly false.
Harris’ Childhood and Background
The birthplace of Vice President Harris is Oakland, California. After her parents divorced when she was twelve years old, she and her mother and younger sister relocated to Quebec, Canada. Harris was born and raised mostly in the United States. After completing her secondary school education in the Montreal region in 1981, she went back to the United States to enroll at Howard University. She graduated from the University of California with a law degree.
Ethnicity and Identification
Harris has always identified as Black. She is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. According to federal criteria, those who are of Jamaican descent are classified as Black or African American. According to the Office of Management and Budget, “Black” or “African American” refers to anyone, including Jamaicans, who are descended from any of the Black ethnic groupings in Africa. A Michigan State University research from 2020 indicated that more than 90% of Jamaicans identify as Black, USA today reported.
Claims About PrisonersThe assertion made in the post that inmates being kept over their scheduled release dates is untrue. In 2014, Harris’s office—as Attorney General of California—was embroiled in a court dispute about the reduction of jail overcrowding. State attorneys said that labor programs, including as one that used prisoners to combat wildfires, would be impacted by the early release of some nonviolent criminals. Harris told her staff to stop using it after expressing amazement at this reasoning. The precise allegation of 2,000 Black prisoners is unfounded, and there is no proof that detainees were kept over their terms, according to USA Today.
Conclusion
The Instagram post’s statements were factually incorrect and overstated. Harris did spent a portion of her adolescence in Canada, but according to government standards, she is Black. The use of the word “prisoners” misrepresents legal defenses and obscures any protracted custody procedures.
