This is the article that appeared in the November 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects
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The Left is good at lying, especially when it comes to the poor and their upbringing.
The first question asked of Kamala Harris by David Muir in the debate between her and Donald Trump was, “When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” She responded, “So, I was raised as a middle-class kid.” Not only was that a dodge—her answer had nothing to do with the question—it was a lie.
In a lengthy piece on Breitbart about her biography, it was said that “a close look at her childhood shows that Harris and her younger sister grew up with many opportunities that many ‘middle class’ children do not have, such as living abroad, private school education, and growing up in some of the wealthiest locales in the world.”
Today, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, have an estimated net worth of $8 million and they live in a house in Brentwood, California worth over $5 million (double what they paid in 2012). The 3,500-square-foot estate has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a private pool. Her neighbors include Gisele Bündchen, Dr. Dre, LeBron James and Gwyneth Paltrow.
None of this would matter much if it weren’t for Harris portraying herself as an average American, and as someone whose background allows her to be the champion of the dispossessed. In actual fact, she has a slavemaster pedigree.
Her father, Stanford professor Donald Harris, is a descendant of Hamilton Brown, a slaveowner in Jamaica. He owned over 120 slaves in the early nineteenth century. He not only was a big sugar plantation slavemaster, he was an outspoken foe of the abolitionists. Moreover, he hated William Wilberforce, the most prominent public opponent of slavery.
Harris does not like to talk about her father’s slavemaster roots, and neither does she like to talk about her mother’s slavemaster roots. Indeed, her mother’s side of the family is a classic case of privilege and an exemplar of oppression.
“In Indian society, we go by birth. We are Brahmins, that is the top caste.” That is how her mother, Shyamala, described her roots.
A caste system is a type of social stratification that differs from a class system in that it does not permit mobility, either upward or downward. It’s a closed system.
At the top are the Brahmins, mostly priests and academics. The second of four castes are known as the Kshatriyas; they are the warriors, administrators and rulers. Vaishyas are the third layer, consisting of artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers. Then come the commoners, the Shudras, mostly peasants and servants. Last are the Dalits; they are the ones who scrub the toilets, etc.
The Brahmins received some of their bounty from selling slaves. In the case of Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, her roots are that of the Tamil Brahmins, also known as Tambrans.
Tambrans are from the southern tip of India, Tamil Nadu. They were the most advantaged group residing in the Tamil-speaking region of the country. As hereditary Hindu priests, they took over many of the elite positions in the colonial government, something which today is a source of embarrassment. This explains why Harris never mentions the words Tamil and Brahmin in her 2019 book about her life, The Truths We Hold. She doesn’t want the world to know about her elitist roots.
Slavery was not outlawed in India until 1843, yet it still exists today in parts of the country. Ironically, it still exists in the spinning mills of Tamil Nadu, Harris’ mother’s hometown area. According to a young scholar in India, “the history of Brahmins is underwritten by centuries of enslaving many millions of others.” This is the privileged basis of Harris’ mother’s ancestors.
The caste system extends back 1,500 years. The Brahmins not only held all the major positions of power in India, but unlike everyone else, they lived in rent free villages. They maintained their grip on power by practicing endogamy, marrying only their own kind; the marriages were arranged.
At the bottom of the caste system are the Dalits, also known as the Untouchables. As one contemporary Indian writer puts it, “India’s history is smeared with brutalities against lower-caste people by those higher up on the caste ladder.” The Untouchables are the most oppressed in the Hindu caste system, a function of their being considered impure.
Harris says we need reparations in the U.S. because of slavery and discrimination. But she never addresses the oppressive conditions of the Dalits and Shudras, nor does she call for the abolition of slavery in India where it still exists.
Perversely, Harris demands that to facilitate discussions on reparations for African Americans we need to do a study of slavery and the effects of discrimination. Fine. Let us also do a study of her slavemaster pedigree. Then she can begin writing checks to those who survived the oppression visited upon their forefathers by her ancestors.
Harris likes to mouth the wonders of inclusion, yet she is the beneficiary of centuries of exclusion. Time for her to fess up.
