Sen. Kamala Harris on Monday explained why she married a white man while defending her black heritage during a radio interview.

"Look, I love my husband, and he happened to be the one that I chose to marry, because I love him — and that was that moment in time, and that's it," Harris told the "Breakfast Club" hosts when asked about criticism she received on social media for marrying a white man. "And he loves me.”

The hosts brought up a meme that began circulating after she announced she was running for president that questions her status as a black American by referencing her immigrant parents who were born in India and Jamaica and her formative high school years spent in Canada.

"So I was born in Oakland, and raised in the United States except for the years that I was in high school in Montreal, Canada," Harris said. "And look, this is the same thing they did to Barack. This is not new to us and so I think that we know what they are trying to do."





Shortly after declaring, conspiracy theorists circulated birther theories that said Harris would need to prove that she was born in the U.S. if she wanted to run for president — the same thing that happened when Obama ran for president.

One host asked Harris what she would say to those that question the “legitimacy of your blackness.”

"I think they don't understand who black people are. I'm not going to spend my time trying to educate people about who black people are,” Harris said. "I'm black, and I'm proud of being black. I was born black. I will die black, and I'm not going to make excuses for anybody because they don't understand."