It isn't as if someone like Janet Jackson, or any Jackson really, can lay claim to having much in common with the average contingency of the African-Amercian community, but her recent comments in a Guardian interview does show a troubling trend of disinformation that seems to have been more frequently popping up among some black people.  Personally, I've seen where both ABC and CNN have featured "undecided" black voters who claimed to believe that Kamala Harris was Indian, and not black.  (One of these voters responded to being corrected with a "agree to disagree", as if this was an opinion.)  I have to wonder, as someone not particularly in touch with most social media platforms, and especially not TikTok, what exactly has been the level of directed disinformation targeting young black people about this issue.  It doesn't feel like an organic misunderstanding, considering how there happens to be zero evidence of Harris ever at any time in her career denying her blackness.  I've found no documented widespread instances of black voters questioning her blackness during her time as a DA, or during her Senatorial campaign, or during her 2020 vie for the presidential nomination.  This sudden concern appears to have automatically coincided with Trump's recent comments about how Harris had magically "turned black" one day.  And it simply cannot be a coincidence that these allegations of Harris deceptively trying to obscure her heritage starting showing up in the discourse at the same time that Trump began showing up in public with Laura Loomer on his arm, with at least one Trump advisor (speaking anonymously) directly crediting Loomer for inspiring the idea in Trump's head shortly before he publicly made those statements.

So what did Janet have to say?  "Well, you know what they supposedly said?  She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian."  Note the sinister spectre of "they" throughout.  Who are "they"?  Are they the same "people on television" telling Trump about Haitian cuisine?  "Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white."  I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Janet Jackson hasn't watched the news in quite some time.  Exactly what it is that she has been watching isn't so clear, but, as noted in the above CBS fact-check, there was a viral attempt in 2020 which used a photo of Harris standing between two white people which claimed they were here parents.  They were not.  A more intensive look at the Harris geneology paints a more complicated - hence, realistic - view of her lineage to included a mixture of African Jamacain slave with Irish slave-holder, which is hardly unusual among descendents of slaves, however uncomfortable as it is for some to acknowledge.  Either way, Jackson's disinformed position is as well outdated as it is it is completely baseless.

Still, it is remarkable how easily, and downright confidently, people tend to reinforce and proclaim information which is, at best, poorly sourced as if it were conventional wisdom.  One would think an element of pride or shame would eventually regulate such statements.  Jackson, on the other hand, appears to have instead fired her spokesperson who issued a public apology on her behalf, suggesting that she is not yet willing to distance herself from the falsehood.