Trump’s Slur of Harris—“Is She Indian or Is She Black?”—Echoes a Creepy Episode From His Past
In a stormy interview at the convention of the National Association for Black Journalists (NABJ) in Chicago, Donald Trump questioned Kamala Harris’s “Blackness.” “Is she Indian, or is she Black?” he asked. The Republican presidential nominee’s question seemed as dim as it was malevolent. And he kept digging deeper.
“She was always of Indian heritage and only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago but when she happened to turn Black. And, now, she wants to be known as Black.”
Harris’s mother is from India, and her father is from Jamaica. She has never denied her Indian heritage and has proudly discussed it. The Howard University undergraduate and of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority member has also never hidden her Black identity. The assertion that she’s somehow been phony or duplicitous about her background is absurd.
Trump’s remark set off a firestorm of rebuke and controversy. Senator Mark Kelly, then a vice presidential hopeful, responded quickly: “I think those were the comments of a desperate, scared old man.”
Even Scott Jennings, the Republican strategist and CNN contributor, who is usually a Trump booster, could not have said it more graphically: “He did crap the bed today. The only question is whether he’s gonna roll around in it or get up and change the sheets.”
Vice President Harris wisely brushed off Trump’s racist rant rather than defend herself against a ludicrous charge: “It was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better.”
Harris is right. It is the same old show. In 1993, Trump sued the federal government over Native American gaming, which was surging at the time and grew to claim over $40 billion in revenue in 2023, according to the National Indian Gaming Commission. Trump argued that the federal government had discriminated against him and his Atlantic City casinos by allowing Native American casinos. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act violated the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving an advantage to “a very limited class of citizens” at the expense of other citizens. The suit was preposterous. He dropped it the following year.
Trump’s animus came from tribes enjoying state exemptions from the gambling laws and their operating casinos on reservations, drawing customers from Atlantic City. Not content to argue the merits of the law, he questioned whether his competitors were, in fact, Native Americans—an echo of his canard that Harris turned her Blackness on and off like a light switch.
In 1993, Trump appeared on the Don Imus radio show and was asked what he thought about one tribe’s plans to open a casino in New Jersey. “A lot of these reservations are being, in some people’s opinion, at least to a certain extent, run by organized crime elements,” he responded. “There’s no protection. There’s no anything. And it’s become a joke.”
Imus mentioned the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which in 1991 had opened the successful Foxwoods Resorts Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut. “I think if you’ve ever been there,” said Trump, “you would truly say that these are not Indians. One of them was telling me his name is Chief Running Water Sitting Bull, and I said, ‘That’s a long name.’ He said, ‘Well, just call me Ricky Sanders.’” The tribe found Trump’s comments disrespectful and racist.
The National Indian Gaming Association filed a complaint against Trump with the Federal Communications Commission over the Imus remarks, demanding an investigation into “obscene, indecent and profane racial slurs against Native Americans and African Americans.” The FCC turned them down, stating that their authority to regulate hate and racist speech was limited by constitutional boundaries “as deplorable or offensive as certain remarks may be.”
Later, in 1993, Trump would testify before Congress that organized crime “is rampant—I don’t mean a little bit—is rampant on Indian reservations.” Then, he delivered the offensive line, which he would repeat on television repeatedly. He said that the Mashantucket Pequots did not look like real Indians. “They don’t look like Indians to me,” he testified. “They don’t look like Indians to Indians.”
Trump’s remarks about organized crime had no foundation. Top officials of the FBI and the Department of Justice testified, “To date there has not been a widespread or successful effort by organized crime to infiltrate Indian gaming operations.” Trump simply made it up.
Representative George Miller, the California Democrat, said that Trump’s testimony was the most “irresponsible” he had heard in 40 years in the House. Roger Stone, who had accompanied Trump to Capitol Hill, tried to sugarcoat Trump’s outrageous remarks, saying he made them “Because, first of all, he’s bold,” adding, “He’s brazen. He fears nothing. And it’s how he really felt.” In fact, it was weird.
In 2000, with New York State considering the possibility of more Native American casinos in the Catskills, Trump anonymously paid over $1 million for an ad campaign designed by Stone, accusing the Mohawk tribe of having criminal records and ties to organized crime. The ads showed lines of cocaine and syringes with the caption: “Are these the neighbors we want?” Another ad warned of the social ills that casino gambling would bring to the Catskills: “increased crime, broken families, bankruptcies, and in the case of the Mohawks, violence.” New York State laws required Trump and Stone to disclose the ad spend as a lobbying effort, which they had not done. State regulators, accordingly, fined Trump $250,000, its largest civil fine ever.
Trump was working both sides of the street. At the same time, the mogul was lobbying against the Mohawks, touting the dangers of casino gambling in the Catskills, he was trying to help the Eastern Paucatuck tribe obtain federal approval for a Connecticut casino. The tribe had promised to pay Trump a percentage of the future casino’s revenues as a management fee. The Eastern Paucatucks won approval, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs imposed a nasty condition. The agency found that the Eastern Paucatucks were part of another Connecticut tribe, the Eastern Pequots, a Native American tribe numbering less than 1,000 from southeastern Connecticut. The Eastern Pequots had their own plans for a casino that did not include Trump. A member of the tribal council, a dark-skinned Native American named Joseph Perry, had a long memory. Explaining his vote against Trump, Perry recalled Trump’s testimony before Congress. It was “a factor in my mind,” he said. “What do Native Americans look like? . . . Some are dark-skinned like myself. We don’t look all alike.”
In 2003, Trump sued the Eastern Pequots. He claimed he had spent nearly $10 million helping promote the tribe’s brand in exchange for the right to negotiate the tribe’s casino agreements. Trump settled the suit in a deal that reportedly involved no payments to Trump. Nevertheless, he told the Congress, “No one is more for the Indians than Donald Trump.”
Sound familiar? Whenever he’s called on his racism and buffoonery, he pretends to be the greatest champion of the minority he just offended. The septuagenarian did the same after he launched his presidential bid in 2015, in which he derided Mexican immigrants and then days later claimed Hispanics “love me.” In 2016, he said a federal judge could not be fair to him in a case against Trump University because he’s Hispanic. So is it any wonder that Trump told the panel of distinguished NABJ journalists, “I love the Black population of this country. I have done so much for the Black population of this country.” With comments like these, the presidency may soon, to quote the 45th president, become a “Black job.”
James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District. He is also the host of the public television talk show and podcast Conversations with Jim Zirin.
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