If Politico editor Sam Stein and reporter Anita Kumar were looking to get ratio’d on Twitter this week … then Politico won the week. A story about Vice President Kamala Harris drew widespread outrage and just plain rage for its claims that Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants who has embraced her biracial identity while being clear that she is seen as Black within the U.S. racial system, “faces criticism that she hasn’t struck the right balance, that she’s focused more often on being the United States’ first Black vice president than the first Asian American one.”

One big problem with the article is that its entire premise—that Harris “faces criticism”—goes unsupported. In around 3,500 words, with quotes from 12 people—from members of Congress to advocates to academics—just two people are quoted criticizing Harris for failing to be adequately Indian (which, let’s face it, also translates as “too Black”). One is a Republican donor and the other is someone who responded to a tweet by Maya Harris, the vice president’s sister.

Way to make the case for the entire premise of a major article.

Kumar’s article, and in particular a tweet promoting it, drew serious backlash, so much so that more than 24 hours later, Stein stepped in to try to absorb some of the anger. “A lot of folks have been directing vitriol at a reporter here for a headline on a Kamala Harris story that I wrote and tweet language that I signed off on. Please stop it. Direct it at me,” Stein tweeted. “i don’t think your criticism are fair, tbh. But i’m willing to hear them out and listen to them. What i can’t stand is people being completely nasty and unprofessional to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

He got his wish for people to direct criticism at him, starting with the point made by many that he might want to refer to her as Vice President Kamala Harris when responding to anger over how his publication was covering her. One person responded with images comparing Politico’s coverage of Mike Pence in his early months as vice president with its coverage of Harris. Go figure—Pence got it comparatively easy.

But hey, Stein doesn’t think criticisms of the article are fair. So let’s talk about that.

According to the Republican donor who constitutes 50% of the people criticizing Harris in the piece, Harris “lacks Indianness.” Specifically, “I don’t know how much we can claim her because she claims to be African American rather than Indian American. I think she is keeping distance from Indian Americans. She should start identifying who she is.”

Buddy, she most often identifies in the way she knows she will be seen in U.S. culture thanks to this nation’s specific racial history. As Harris wrote in her memoir, her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, raised her daughters “with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture,” but also “understood very well that she was raising two black daughters.” 

”Growing up in America, our mothers had to make sure that we were aware that we were Black women because that’s how we were going to be seen, that’s how we were going to be treated,” Carole Porter, a childhood friend of Harris’ who is also biracial, told Kumar for Politico. “We needed to know that and be aware of that and feel that.”

This is a very well-established part of the identity Harris has expressed. She was raised by an Indian single mother and repeatedly visited family in Chennai. But in these United States of America, when people look at her and talk to her, they are responding to a Black woman and their expectations thereof. Saying she “lacks Indianness” could mean a bunch of things—for one thing, anti-Blackness is very much a thing among some Indians—but whatever it means, the reality is that Politico was not able to come up with more than two basically unknown people to express it.

Here are a few of the things people were quoted saying in the same article—things dropped between “some say”-type paragraphs hinting at widespread condemnation, things that somehow don’t seem to have influenced the overall framing of the article, headline, or tweets.

“I’ve heard her address her South Asian heritage and talk about her aunties, but I also understand someone who is half-Black, what that means in America, how the rest of America looks at a person who’s got Black heritage. That’s how it is in America,” said Rep. Mark Takano. “I think we need to give everyone who is interracial, intersectional the space to talk about themselves in the way they see themselves.”

”It’s a tremendous tool and a tremendous way of connecting with people and making them feel included so I would just encourage more of that for her because she is such a symbol for so many people in this country that are Asian American Pacific Islander,” said Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, in what maybe the powers that be at Politico counted as criticism? “I would just encourage more of that” is, after all, perhaps the third most critical thing said about Harris in the piece.

”Her presence will transform the way our community looks at itself,” the head of an Indian American advocacy group predicted. “There is a robust, well-recognized established political history in the U.S. that no one understands and they are still learning what it means to be South Asian and what is our history. She will be able to bridge many communities.”

It is overwhelmingly likely the case that some people—more than just the two quoted in this article—do criticize Harris on racial identity grounds. It would be shocking if that weren’t true considering the realities of race and racism in both the United States and India. But if a publication is going to dedicate thousands of words to that subject, it should be an interrogation of those racial discourses and why and how they’re being applied, and by whom, and what histories are involved. Dedicating that space to innuendo and implications of what people are saying, which people will not come out and be quoted saying? That’s just trash.