Janet Jackson’s Misstep On Kamala Harris Illustrates The Problem Disinformation Poses For This Election
Janet Jackson attends Thom Browne’s 20th Anniversary celebration with Phaidon at the Victoria and Albert Museum on October 9, 2023, in London, England. | Source: Dave Benett / Getty
Singer, actress and much-beloved superstar Janet Jackson found herself on the wrong side of a social media dragging over the weekend when she was quoted in an interview published by The Guardian Saturday parroting Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory talking points about Vice President Kamala Harris’ Blackness.
When asked where she stands on the possibility of America electing its first Black female president, Michael Jackson’s little sister gave the most disappointing answer ever.
“Well, you know what they supposedly said?” she asked journalist Nosheen Iqbal. “She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”
Iqbal gently pushed back, saying, “Well, she’s both.”
“Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days,” Jackson replied. “I was told that they discovered her father was white.”
Donald Trump has openly questioned Kamala Harris’ Blackness
In case you missed it, Donald Trump very publicly questioned Kamala Harris’ Blackness during his infamous NABJ panel. He did the same thing with former President Barack Obama, questioning whether or not Obama was actually born in the United States and eligible to run for the highest office in the country.
It is both racist and insulting that Trump resorts to these tactics.
Kamala Harris has often repeated how she was raised by her Indian mother to be a Black woman.
In her 2019 book The Truths We Hold, Harris wrote, “My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters.”
Questioning the Blackness of a woman who went to an HBCU, pledged a Black Greek letter organization and has made her Blackness a huge part of her platform is a decided choice.
Donald Trump repeatedly using that as a talking point is intentional disinformation, and Janet Jackson falling for it is, again, one of the most disappointing things to have happened in the last week.
Donald Trump’s campaign is a disinformation engine
We are six weeks away from a presidential election that will turn the tide of this country no matter its outcome.
We are just 43 days away from a presidential election that will turn the tide of this country no matter its outcome, and the race for that seat is so close, it’s scary.
Donald Trump is still very much a part of this race, and that is the most mind-boggling thing I’ve had to type more than once during this presidential election (and the one in 2016).
Trump has a legion of loyal supporters who eat up everything he says, whether it is based in fact or not, and if we are being honest, little to nothing he says is actually based in fact.
Trump does a lot of lying. His entire campaign sits on a throne of disinformation, and that combined with the blatant misinformation that gets spread by people who are easily misled by false information as long as you put it in a pretty graphic on Instagram.
Understanding the difference between misinformation and disinformation
And while we’re here, let us please make sure we understand the difference between misinformation and disinformation because there is a huge difference, and conflating the two is also a problem in this current state of affairs.
Misinformation is false information that gets passed around even if it’s not intentional. If I read my calendar wrong and tell you that the meeting is at 8 p.m. when it’s really at 9 p.m., that’s misinformation. It happens, and once the accurate information is given, it can be corrected. People are misinformed all the time, and hopefully they adapt and adjust when presented with the facts.
On the other hand, disinformation is another word for propaganda. It is patently false information that is spread around with malicious intent.
Lies, propaganda and disinformation
The Trump camp has been throwing around a lot of disinformation during this presidential campaign, and the folks who follow him and his sycophant, JD Vance, lap it up by the bowl, eagerly spreading it amongst their circles until it becomes their version of the “truth.”
The idea that Haitian immigrants are stealing people’s housepets and eating them is disinformation (and fear-mongering Blackness, but I’ll get to that in a separate column).
The idea that Kamala Harris “just started being Black” is disinformation.
I could cite many more instances where Trump has used disinformation, but we’d be here all day; those are just two of the most blatant examples.
The problem does not rest solely with the racist people of pallor who will blindly follow Trump through the gates of hell if it means preventing Black people from getting even an inch further in life.
Black people are specifically targeted by disinformation
One of the biggest pieces of misinformation I’ve seen Black people use as justification for why they will or would vote for Trump is the idea that Trump gave everyone a stimulus check during the pandemic.
Fact: Trump didn’t give y’all a gotdamn thing, baby. He just insisted that his name be on the checks so he could get credit for it.
A little bit of Google research can go a long way to helping people stay informed, but in a society that is now heavily reliant on social media for information, it’s easy to lead people astray with minimal effort.
According to Pew Research Center, 54% of adults in the U.S. say they get their news from social media at least part of the time.
Facebook and YouTube are cited as the spaces where about one-third of U.S. adults say they get their news from followed by Instagram (20%), TikTok (17%), X, formerly Twitter, (12%), Reddit (8%), Nextdoor (5%), Snapchat (5%), WhatsApp (5%), LinkedIn (4%), Truth Social (3%) and Rumble (2%).
We should be concerned.
We should be concerned because people creating content on these platforms do not always have the best intentions, and putting out disinformation is oftentimes a tool to raise engagement.
As the saying goes, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
This was studied by MIT in 2018 and found to be true, and contrary to popular belief, false information was most commonly spread by humans and not bots.
The study found that false news stories are 70% more likely to be shared than true stories, and it takes true stories “six times as long to reach 1500 people as it does for false stories to reach the same number of people.”
I say again: We should be concerned. We should be very concerned.
This is a crucial election that requires informed voters
The vote this November is not just about the presidency. It’s about all the elections that are going to make a difference and shape who creates legislation in this country.
It’s about the judges who will be put on benches in municipal courts around the country. It’s about who is going to be on your city council; who will be on your county board of supervisors; who is going to pick your police chief; and a number of other offices — both big and small — that will have a large impact on your day-to-day life.
Everyone should want to be informed, and everyone should want to be armed with accurate information, but because of the way social media works, even the best of us can fall for so-called “fake news.”
Shannon Sharpe just had an entire “accidental Instagram live” spectacle last week that resulted in him selling merchandise related to him trying to prove to his internet fathers that he is not gay (which, at his BIG AGE, is shameful as hell), and people ate it up.
Never mind that it takes at least three button pushes to go live on Instagram, not including opening the app. People believed him because critical thinking is at an all-time low in this country.
People are ready and willing to believe anything.
And while the Shannon Sharpe situation is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, it does highlight in real time what happens when people don’t have the information or the tools they need to make reasoned connections on their own.
Be a spreader of good information
Taking it back to this election, the need for passing along good information is clear.
I encourage every Black journalist to do their part to help other Black people be armed with the information they need before they step into those ballot booths on Nov. 5.
I encourage every informed Black person to help inform their friends, their colleagues, their coworkers and anyone else who will listen because it’s getting hectic out there.
Our voices are all we have.
Disinformation and misinformation are the bread and butter of the Trump campaign. They want to mislead people. They want to manipulate people. They are using simple-minded tricks because they believe everyone is as simple-minded as they are.
During this election, disinformation and misinformation could be the difference between an America we can recognize and an America that looks like a fascist country.
Monique Judge is a storyteller, content creator and writer living in Los Angeles. She is a word nerd who is a fan of the Oxford comma, spends way too much time on Twitter, and has more graphic t-shirts than you. Follow her on Twitter @thejournalista or check her out at moniquejudge.com.
SEE ALSO:
How Newsroom Cuts Leave Black Communities Even More Susceptible To Online Misinformation
Revisiting Platform Accountability Coverage After Trump Reinstated To Facebook And Instagram
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