Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Love, Joy, Feminism

Home
Nonreligious
This Is Racist Birtherism

This Is Racist Birtherism

Last updated on: August 14, 2020 at 8:44 am by Libby Anne

This Is Racist Birtherism 2020-08-14T08:44:39-04:00 Libby Anne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Newsweek is Just Asking Questions. Questions about Kamala Harris’ citizenship, of course. Because who knows! Maybe the scary black lady whose parents aren’t from here isn’t really a U.S. citizen! (Gee, does this sound familiar?)

John Eastman is a law professor at Chapman University and a former candidate for California Attorney General in that state’s Republican primary in 2010. In a Newsweek opinion piece published yesterday, after Biden announced that he had picked Kamala Harris as his running mate, Eastman wrote as follows:

The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position.

Which “some,” John? Hmm? Do you mean you? Or racist bigots? Who, exactly? If you’re going to say it, you might as well state the quiet part out loud, and not hide behind a nebulous “some.”

The 12th Amendment provides that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” And Article II of the Constitution specifies that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen…shall be eligible to the office of President.” Her father was (and is) a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of Harris’ birth in 1964. That, according to these commentators, makes her not a “natural born citizen”—and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president.

Eastman does not deny that Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California. He simply questions whether the children of immigrants are, in fact, well, U.S. citizens.

Also, who exactly are “these commentators”? Eastman does not link to anyone else saying what he’s saying. He simply asserts that “some” people are saying it and that “these commentators” don’t feel she’s eligible. He literally never names these people or links to anything they’ve written.

The level of cowardice here is stark.

The language of Article II is that one must be a natural-born citizen. The original Constitution did not define citizenship, but the 14th Amendment does—and it provides that “all persons born…in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” Those who claim that birth alone is sufficient overlook the second phrase. The person must also be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and that meant subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States (whether lawfully or unlawfully).

Those “temporarily sojourning” in the U.S. would likely be quite surprised to learn that they are only partially bound by U.S. law. I’m not going to dicker about Harris’ parents’ specific legal status when she was born, because frankly, the 14th Amendment was designed to make freed slaves U.S. citizens, and I’m pretty damn sure that means it’s not about one’s particular legal status.

Eastman argues that if Harris’ parents didn’t become naturalized U.S. citizens by the time she was 16, she is currently not a U.S. citizen. This blows up Eastman’s whole 14th Amendment argument: if a freed slave’s ancestor’s never became U.S. citizens (and they did not), Eastman’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment would seem to render that freed slave not a U.S. citizen.

Although, Eastman does make one exception:

Were Harris’ parents lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth? If so, then under the actual holding of Wong Kim Ark, she should be deemed a citizen at birth—that is, a natural-born citizen—and hence eligible. Or were they instead, as seems to be the case, merely temporary visitors, perhaps on student visas issued pursuant to Section 101(15)(F) of Title I of the 1952 Immigration Act?

Here’s the thing though: Slaves were neither “lawful permanent residents” (they were literally property) nor “subject to the complete jurisdiction” thereof (laws applied differently to property). So once again, if you use the 14th Amendment to render Harris not a citizen, you do the same to all freed slaves. Consider, too, that Eastman is trying to use the 14th Amendment to narrow who counted as a U.S. citizen. The whole point of the 14th Amendment was to broaden who was a U.S. citizen. This is so disingenuous it hurts.

Eastman’s use of Wong Kim Ark is also disingenuous. That case affirmed birthright citizenship. Eastman argues that because the parents in that case were “lawful, permanent residents” it does not apply to Harris. Using the case that arguably created birthright citizenship to deny it to Harris is absolute balderdash.

This is actually a really important story. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, and, as an adult, traveled to China to visit relatives. On his return he was barred entry under the claim that he was not a U.S. citizen, because he was Chinese. Chinese were, under the Chinese Exclusion Act, prevented from becoming U.S. citizens by law. Wong Kim Ark argued, under the 14th Amendment, that he was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the U.S. The Supreme Court found in favor of Wong Kim Ark. This was a huge deal. Huge deal! This is the case Eastman is using to argue that being born in the U.S. is not enough to make Harris a citizen.

No matter how you slice it, Eastman’s arguments make no sense, and appear to be part and parcel of a greater xenophobic racist effort in portions of the Republican Party to eliminate birthright citizenship. This is something Trump himself has suggested, and it is always, always, always grounded in a xenophobic, racist anti-immigrant ethos. Those people are not like us. They are not real Americans.

It’s unsurprising, then, that many many people reacted negatively to Eastman’s article, decrying the creation of a newly renewed birtherism, focused this time not on Barack Obama but on Kamala Harris. There are many similarities, after all. Bear in mind that anti-Obama birtherism didn’t just hold that Obama was actually born in Kenya, because this should not actually have mattered given that his mother was a U.S. citizen (the children of U.S. citizens are U.S. citizens no matter where they are born). Instead, the argument was that Obama’s mother was too young at his birth to pass her U.S. citizenship on.

In other words, birtherism was always weedsy and not just about where Obama was born. It was always this sort of ridiculous whataboutism and hair-splitting about what the U.S. Constitution actually says about citizenship. It was always about undermining the credibility of a powerful Black candidate.

After the uproar that followed the publication of Eastman’s post, Newsweek added a note to the top. Was it an apology? A distancing? No. It was nothing of the sort.

Editor’s note: Some readers reacted strongly to this essay, seeing it as an attempt to ignite a racist conspiracy theory. That is entirely inaccurate, as this Note explains.

Entirely! Inaccurate!

What exactly does the “note” say?

Editor’s Note: Eastman’s Newsweek Column Has Nothing to Do With Racist Birtherism

By Nancy Cooper and John Hammer

Some of our readers have reacted strongly to the op-ed we published by Dr. John Eastman, assuming it to be an attempt to ignite a racist conspiracy theory around Kamala Harris’ candidacy. Dr. Eastman was focusing on a long-standing, somewhat arcane legal debate about the precise meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. His essay has no connection whatsoever to co-called “birther-ism,” the racist 2008 conspiracy theory aimed at delegitimizing then-candidate Barack Obama by claiming, baselessly, that he was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya. We share our readers’ revulsion at those vile lies.

Uh huh. Sure Jan.

It’s all bullshit. The whole piece is bullshit. It is true, as the piece notes, that when John McCain ran for president questions came up about whether he was a “natural born citizen” due his to being born in the Panama Canal Zone. But I would note that no one questioned McCain’s citizenship. The question was not whether McCain was a citizen but whether he met the eligibility requirements for president (which actually go beyond mere citizenship). Eastman, though, questioned whether Harris was a U.S. citizen at all and even suggested that she may in fact be an undocumented alien.

Questioning whether someone born in the United States is in fact a U.S. citizen at all is manifestly not the same as discussing whether or not someone born outside of the United States to U.S. citizen parents is a “natural born citizen” for the purposes of presidential eligibility (and not whether they are a U.S. citizen).

Oh, and also? The fact that we settled that question right quickly (and concessively) in the case of John McCain and then moved on, but nevertheless keep bringing up citizenship qualification questions when Black people born in the U.S. to immigrant parents run for president is exactly the problem.

Oh and also, check this out:

Josh Hammer, Newsweek’s opinion editor, is a published constitutional scholar and former federal court of appeals law clerk who was involved in helping Senator Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign rebut the erroneous claims that Cruz was ineligible on “natural born Citizen” grounds.

Uhhhh okay then. Cool cool cool.

Hammer, remember, is one of two names on the “we promise Eastman’s column has nothing to do with racist birtherism” followup piece. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban father and a U.S. citizen mother. While I do think people like Cruz should be eligible to run for president, the idea that Cruz has a greater claim to being a “natural born U.S. citizen” than a woman literally born in the United States is absurd. That Hammer, who was directly involved in defending Cruz’s eligibility to run, is willing to so blithely engage in the questions about Harris’s eligibility, to me highlights the fact that this is racist birtherism.

This is racist birtherism. This is racist birtherism. This is racist birtherism. Are we clear yet? This is racist birtherism.

I have a Patreon! Please support my writing!

Politics

Channel - Politics Blue

Kamala Harris

racism

Previous Post

August 11, 2020

A Patriarchal Blogger, Nakedness, and the Goddess Hera

Next Post

August 14, 2020 The Vision: The Native Americans and the Wonder Cure

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atheism Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism Family Feminism Homeschool Meta Parenting Patriarchy Politics Purity Quiverfull Social Justice Uncategorized Worthwhile reads

Select a Month February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the Bible say about pride?

Select your answer to see how you score.

It is a virtue It always wins It is harmless It goes before a fall