AI-generated image representing the flaunting of ignorance
Once when I was a youngster, I was playing dumb about something as kids sometimes will. My mother fixed me with a stare and said, “Megan, it’s one thing to be ignorant, but it’s another to be proud of it.” This embarrassing memory has come flashing back over the last week as I’ve tripped across several feigned-ignorance stabs at Kamala Harris for supposedly being descended from an enslaver.
Typical of this is the Daily Mail:
It bears mentioning that this is just a tired rehash from 2020 when Dinesh D’Souza – echoed by other extremists – came out with the bizarre claim that, “Kamala Harris’ father revealed his family is descended from one of Jamaica’s largest slave planters. This means Kamala is descended not from slaves but from slaveowners.”
There’s so much to unpack here, but let’s start with the most glaring. In the third decade of the 21st century, to couch this so-called revelation as some sort of gotcha is an astonishing display of ignorance, racism, or – let’s be real – both.
Articles (not to speak of social media amplification) on this topic bury the lede as if the writers are clueless about the horrors of slavery. Even if this were true (more on this shortly), what matters is that at least one of her ancestors was raped, not that there might be an enslaver in the family tree.
Sadly, for African and Caribbean Americans, this is a pronounced reality – a legacy of slavery and its inherent depravity. DNA testing has revealed that on average, African Americans have almost a quarter European ancestry. The percentage would vary somewhat for those with roots in Jamaica where slavery ended in 1838, but given their plantation system, the only question is the exact figure.
Why might that be?
Because enslavers routinely raped those they enslaved. You know who else did? Their sons, fathers, uncles, and cousins. Add to this their foremen, visitors, and any of a number of white men Black women had the misfortune of being exposed to.
The motive for all this? A mix of domination and control, unconstrained lust, and profit. After all, if a victim became pregnant, the enslaver grew his inventory – more free labor or another person to sell.
To pluck out and feature an enslaver as a possible ancestor and erase the countless others who endured slavery is just one more example of the cherry-picking pattern so prevalent among extremists. I realize this will be a blinding flash of the obvious to 95% of those reading these words, but it’s not Kamala Harris who needs to answer for this, but rather, her accusers.
And here’s the kicker: There’s no proof.
Forgive me as I put on my geeky, genealogical cap, and point out that this “news” is premised on a combination of her father’s claim and follow up commentary by a historian who accepted that assertion at face value. That’s a red flag. When I uncovered Barack Obama’s roots in Moneygall, Ireland, I was extensively grilled by journalists, but that hasn’t happened here. The only efforts to connect the dots were made by fact checkers and genealogists – and four years later, none has succeeded.
It’s true that Kamala Harris’s father, Donald J. Harris, stated, “My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (née Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town)” in an article in Jamaica Global.
Maybe he has proof that he’s reluctant to share, but the more likely scenario is that he was parroting what he was told by his elders. And the thing is, we all tend to believe whatever great-aunt Tillie told us. It’s why, for example, so many Americans still believe the myth that names were changed at Ellis Island. They weren’t, but the moment you say so publicly, people will come out of the woodwork indignantly telling you that you’re wrong – all because Grandpa told them so.
“Had he not done so a mere 14 years before the birth of his granddaughter, millions of Americans would now be gearing up to vote for Kamala Brown.”
Whether it’s true or not, I have no qualms with her father saying this, but I do with the media that reported it with no effort to substantiate – instead hedging their bets with wording such as “historian claims.” To a genealogist, the lack of a paper trail makes this the equivalent of gossip. If you actually try to trace the Harris family’s past, you’ll encounter stumbling blocks that are common to many, starting with names.
Most of us today are locked into 21st century expectations with regard to the precision of names and dates, but both were far more malleable in the past, and you can’t find a better example than the birth record of Kamala Harris’s grandfather:
Birth record of Oscar Wilde Brown, aka Oscar Joseph Harris; Jamaica, Civil Registration, 1880-1999, Family Search
He was born as Oscar Wilde Brown, but if you scrutinize the comment on the right, it states that his name was changed to Oscar Joseph Harris, presumably in recognition of his father, Joseph Alexander Harris. Had he not done so a mere 14 years before the birth of his granddaughter, millions of Americans would now be gearing up to vote for Kamala Brown.
You’ll note that Oscar’s mother is recorded as Christiana Brown. Kamala’s father, Donald, remembers her well and says that his grandmother died in 1951. Given that he would have been 12 at the time, I lean toward trusting his recollection (we often remember how old we were when we lost a loved one, which makes it possible to estimate an approximate year), and that record is easy to verify online. Right name, right year, and right location (Brown’s Town, St Ann Parish).
Death record of Christiana Brown; Jamaica, Civil Registration, 1880-1999, Family Search
Note that this document says she was 70. Even setting aside the fact that Donald originally claimed that she was 62 when she died (a young person is more likely to remember their own age when they lost a grandparent than the grandparent’s age), genealogists know to second guess round-numbers. Sure, she might have been 70, but maybe she was 73 or 66, and this is where the true obstacle comes in.
We have to allow wiggle room regarding her year of birth, so to be sure (and to include Donald’s first take of 62), I looked for births of Christiana Browns between 1875 and 1890. Narrowing the search to St. Ann Parish (where Brown’s Town was located) turns up seven candidates. That doesn’t include the three unnamed Brown children recorded there just in 1881, and of course, it’s possible she was born in another parish.
A couple stand out as slightly more likely since they took place in Brown’s Town, but how do you select the correct one? Let’s say you take the one born in 1881 to Frances Brown. Where do you go from there? Frances Brown isn’t an unusual name and there’s no age or other details provided to help you determine the right one and follow her trail.
Every child-to-parent link must be proved, but we’re already stuck by the 1880s, so how does one make the tie back to Hamilton Brown, the enslaver who died in 1843? Four years after people started digging, no one has been able to make the connection. Perhaps some locally held church, estate, or other records hold the necessary clues, but meanwhile, we’ve got a multi-generational gap, and in genealogical terms, that means you’ve got a long way to go or you’re just plain wrong.
So what we’re dealing with is click bait garbage that tries to blame Kamala Harris for the barbarity some of her female ancestors somehow survived.
If you bother to read past the incendiary headline of the Daily News article cited above, you’ll find the following CYA text tucked in there:
“Reuters fact checkers have said that Kamala is likely to be a descendant of both slaves and slave owners. It is not uncommon for African Americans or people of Caribbean heritage to be descended from a (sic) slave owners. This is because it was common for slave masters to rape their female slaves.”
As if any fact checking were required for common knowledge like this, much less by a third party (and yes, they need to work on their language). Still, they chose to lead with the “notorious Irish slave owner” claim without an ounce of proof that there’s any relationship, and inevitably, trolls and bots are spreading the nonsense.
I was mortified at the ripe old age of nine to be called out for playing dumb, but our media wears it like a badge of honor. But even with today’s diminished standards, it’s staggering that any journalist or publication would be so damned eager to flaunt their ignorance.
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