CNN anchor Michael Smerconish tried on Saturday to explain away black men openly questioning Vice President Kamala Harris' racial identity.

Harris' racial identity became headline news last week after former President Donald Trump brought attention to the fact that Harris and the media have emphasized the different aspects of Harris' familial background — her mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican — at different points in her political career.

'Some describe them as low-information voters, no different than you'd find among whites.'

"She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black," Trump said. "So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?"

Those comments sent the media and Democrats into an outrage. But how do everyday black Americans feel?

Last week, WHP-TV anchor Joel Smith visited a barber shop in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, to speak with black men about the 2024 election.

One moment from Smith's interview generated significant attention over the weekend: It happened when Smith invoked Harris. At that moment, one of the interview participants immediately questioned whether Harris is black.

"Is Kamala going to make you a little more likely or less likely to vote Democrat?" Smith asked.

"Hold on. Wait. Is Kamala black, yes or no?" one participant interjected, asking the barber shop owner to answer the question.

"I'm going to let her speak on it. But to me, no," the barber shop owner responded.

Another participant said he agreed with the owner's view, while another said he has only "heard" that Harris is black.

What is fascinating about this exchange is that it happened before Trump's comments about Harris at the National Black Journalists Association event. This suggests that Harris' racial identity is already an open question among black voters.

Despite the profound moment, Smerconish responded to the clip by relaying an insult against those interviewed.

"When I played that audio on my SiriusXM radio program on Thursday, many callers who self-identified as African-American were quick to tell me that those men were the exception, not the rule. Some describe them as low-information voters, no different than you'd find among whites," Smerconish said on his CNN show after playing the clip from the barber shop.

However, the men from the barber shop interview are not "low-information voters." Instead, they discussed a host of political and cultural issues with proficiency for the entire 45-minute interview.

Smerconish later took issue with the accusation that he had insulted the men from the interview, arguing he was "quoting radio callers, not expressing my own views."

But the problem is that Smerconish presented only one side of the reaction, which makes it seem like it's the only side. And as the men from the barber shop themselves proved, playing games of identity politics and forcing people into tidy boxes based on their skin color doesn't work.

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