So Kamala Harris has shared heritage from India and Jamaica, but identifies as black? I thought being black was the provenance of African heritage, and why is it so sensitive of a question to raise? Is it not a legitimate inquiry? Usually when a question provokes such a disproportionate and angry backlash, it indicates that the inquiry is hitting a nerve because those being questioned have no good response. Are blacks descended from Africa not offended when non-Africans appropriate their culture, history, and heritage for political purposes?

It’s funny, when Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal masqueraded as black women while being white, they were taken to the woodshed for their temerity to culturally appropriate another race.

If you don’t remember these two, Krug was a college professor of African Studies at  George Washington University before she outed herself in an on-line magazine article after a “marathon of deceit.” Here’s what Krug wrote:

To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness. I have not only claimed these identities as my own when I had absolutely no right to do so — when doing so is the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures….

Krug lost her teaching job and was pilloried by the local black community.

The story of Rachel Dolezal got more national attention. Back in 2015, Dolezal was a  prominent African studies professor at Washington State University. She was also the  head of the NAACP in Spokane, Washington—but then some enterprising reporter  interviewed her parents, who were both white.

NAACP President Cornell Brooks said of Dolezal, “Just because one appreciates African American culture, does not give you an excuse to disrespect that culture. CNN contributor  Steve Perry said, “he resented the ‘cartoonish approach’ of a woman he called a ‘fraud’” and noted her deception was “self-serving”:

Why not just be a White woman who supports Black ppl? #RachelDolezal has a cognitive dissonance that is straight stunning & self serving.

— Dr. Steve Perry (@DrStevePerry) June 16, 2015

Dolezal was ripped to shreds on Twitter as exercising her white privilege. She lost her job and resigned from her position at the NAACP.

So why the wildly different reaction to Kamala Harris? Could it be that instead of Harris  appropriating black culture, black progressive culture is appropriating Harris? If Harris can pass for “black,” especially in a world that is so afraid of culturally or racially offending, the black progressive voters can hook their wagon to Harris and have her, hopefully, pull them along for the ride.

And so there I think I have answered my own question about the seeming double  standard. The black progressives will hold you accountable for appropriating their culture, that is unless there is a payday and in that case, okay, let’s talk. The chances of the black progressive power structure walking away from Harris on principled grounds were as likely as an OJ guilty verdict or BLM passing an accounting audit.

Image: YouTube video screen grab.