Representatives for singer Janet Jackson have clarified that an apology for claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris is “not Black,” never actually came from her at all.
“She’s not Black,” Jackson said in an interview with The Guardian published Saturday. “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.”
Harris, of course, is not half-white. Her father is Donald Harris, a Jamaican-American economist who was the first Black scholar to receive a tenured position at Stanford’s economics department.
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Harris, who graduated from leading historically Black university Howard, has frequently spoken about her Black identity in politics. She also once joked, when asked if she’d ever smoked marijuana, “Half my family’s from Jamaica, are you kidding me?”
She is also Indian. Her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a medical scientist who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was originally from Chennai.
An apparent spokesperson for Jackson, Mo Elmasri, later told BuzzFeed that her comments were “based on misinformation.”
“She deeply respects Vice President Kamala Harris and her accomplishments as a Black and Indian woman,” Elmasri added. “Janet apologizes for any confusion caused and acknowledges the importance of accurate representation in public discourse. We appreciate the opportunity to address this and will remain committed to promoting unity.”
But representatives for the singer say followed up by claiming that the comment was made without her knowlege or consent.
Elmasri is listed as Jackson’s manager on a number of industry sites–including IMDb pro and and Celebrity Service. He later told the Daily Beast he had been fired by Janet and brother Randy Jackson over The Guardian drama.
Former president Donald Trump—Harris’ opponent in this year’s presidential election—has polluted the public conversation about Harris’ race, making false claims that Harris misled voters about her background.
“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,” Trump told the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago last month. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
