Though Donald J. Harris remained a part of his children’s lives, Sen. Kamala Harris and her sister were raised by their mother. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 2020 ELECTIONS Kamala Harris shamed by Jamaican father over pot-smoking joke

Kamala Harris made headlines last week when she joked in a radio interview that of course she smoked marijuana in her younger years: “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?”

But the crack didn’t go over well with at least one Jamaican: Donald J. Harris, her father.


The elder Harris sent an unsolicited statement to Kingston-based Jamaica Global Online, for which the emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University wrote a recent essay on his family’s history.

“My dear departed grandmothers (whose extraordinary legacy I described in a recent essay on this website), as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” he wrote.

“Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” he added.

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Kamala Harris’ campaign had no comment.

Harris’ parents separated when she was young and divorced a few years later. Though Donald Harris remained a part of his children’s lives, Kamala Harris and her sister were raised by their mother.

In the interview with “The Breakfast Club” podcast, Kamala Harris cited her Jamaican heritage when asked to respond to those who believe she’s opposed to legalizing marijuana. “Are you kidding me?” she said.

Harris said she smoked a joint in college. “And I inhaled,” she added, a joking reference to former President Bill Clinton’s comment on the campaign trail in 1992 that he smoked marijuana but didn’t inhale.

Donald Harris, who did not respond to requests for comment, worked with the Jamaican website’s administrator when he was consulting and writing about the economy there in the 1990s.

In an email reviewed by POLITICO, Donald Harris indicated he wasn’t interested in discussing the issue further publicly: “I have decided to stay out of all the political hullabaloo by not engaging in any interviews with the media,” he wrote.

