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.