Kamala Harris has elevated the Blindian community: ‘It’s a validation of the identity I’ve had to fight for’
With a Black father and an Indian mother, Harris is part of a group that has struggled for acceptance.
(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty; Julia Rendleman for The Washington Post; Lily illustration)
Caroline Kitchener
Jan. 12, 2021
Sharda Sekaran was raised by a single Black mom. She went to mostly Black schools as a child, in mostly Black neighborhoods. Looking at her, she says, some people assume she’s Black.
But her name — Sharda — always gave her away.
All her life, Sekaran has searched for other “Blindians” — people with one Black and one Indian parent. The closest she came was the couple in “Mississippi Masala,” she says, a 1991 movie about a Black man and an Indian woman who fall in love.