Newsweek apologizes for racist birther article about Oakland-born Kamala Harris.

Vice President nominee Kamala Harris.

First of all: Let's stop calling it "birtherism," and just call it for what it is -- racist.

Last week Newsweek published an oped that raised the question of Kamala Harris citizenship status because both her parents were immigrants. Her mother is from India and her father hails from Jamaica. Harris was born in Oakland, California and last I checked, the city -- just across the bay from San Francisco -- is part of the United States.

According to the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Harris' parents, both doctors, were legal U.S. residents at the time of Harris's birth.

To even raise the question of the legitimacy of Harris' American citizenship is laughable but to publish an article about that question is deplorable.

The article by law professor John Eastman follows the same birtherism path espoused by Donald Trump in casting doubt on President Barack Obama's citizenship, a question that has repeatedly been proven baseless and totally without merit.

Since the posting of the article, four days ago, Newsweek on Friday issued an apology and added a forward to the oped summing up the legal grounds for raising the question as if it was an academic exercise. 

Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Nancy Cooper and the magazine’s recently hired opinion editor, Trump-backing conservative Josh Hammer, issued an apology on Friday after almost a week of defending a Eastman's op-ed questioning Harris' U.S. citizenship and her eligibility to be Joe Biden’s running mate.

“This op-ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize,” read the editor’s note that replaced their earlier detailed defense of the op-ed. “[T]o many readers, the essay inevitably conveyed the ugly message that Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of color and the child of immigrants, was somehow not truly American.”

Instead of taking down the controversial oped, Newsweek is allowing the article to remain on its website. Newsweek also has provided a link to a counterargument. But it's too late.

Kamala Harris, right, daughter of her immigrant parents.

Jenna Ellis, Trump;s senior campaign adviser, retweeted the Newsweek story and said that Harris “should answer so the American people know for sure she is eligible.”

When asked about the article, Donald Trump did not denounce or discredit it.

“I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements. And, by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer," said Trump. "I have no idea if that’s right.”

The worst thing you can call a journalist is to call the reporter, editor or news organization biased.

The tendency for news organizations to bend over backwards to prove their neutrality is one of the flaws of today's journalism. Writers and editors demand a balanced presentation of both sides of an issue, even if one side is totally without credence.

Witness the debate over climate change. 99.9% of the world's scientists say climate change is happening and humanity is responsible for hastening the warming of the world's climate. Reporters -- in their effort to be balanced -- will seek out the scientist representing the opposing view of 0.01% of the scientists and present it as an equally credible theory.

The effort to prove that a news report is unbiased in the argument over affirmative action is another example of another example of this bending over backwards.

There are some Asian Americans who believe that educational institutions are biased against Asian Americans because of the affirmative action policies employed by those said universities to ensure a diverse student body and to provide opportunities to those people who have historically suffered under biased admission policies.

The media -- not all, but generally -- will jump on the arguments by the anti-affirmative action Asian Americans because the supposed "victims" of the alleged institutional bias are not white therefore their argument is not racist.

But by focusing on the aggrieved Asian Americans, journalist ignore the fact that the vast majority of Asian Americans favor affirmative action. 

Therefore, the flawed article -- as presented -- sets up all Asian Americans apart from and against other communities of color as the so-called model minority. It divides us and ignores the wide disparities that exist within the monolithic block of Asian America.

The Newsweek article drew the wrath not only from Harris supporters, but also from its own staff.

Newsweek's Christina Zhao, a New York-based senior breaking news editor, tweeted: “This is an inflammatory and racist op-ed that should never have been published. That is my opinion.” 

We knew that when Joe Biden named Kamala Harris as his choice to be his vice president, that a lot of crap would be thrown at her by racists and misogynists. This is just the beginning. We can expect the kitchen sink thrown at her.

The Russians will probably add fuel to the fire and try and separate her from the Black community by wondering if she is "black enough," since her mother and father are both immigrants and didn't experience the daily burden of being black in America.

The converse question, "Is she Indian, enough?" is already being debated by a small sector of Trump backers within the Indian American community.

The Russians will also probably try to insert themselves in questions about her record as a "progressive" prosecutor who tried to initiate changes from within the justice system by bringing up some of the proposals or positions she took as San Francisco's District Attorney or California's Attorney General.

Another potential dividing line is Harris' career as a prosecutor, traditionally seen by a portion of the black community as the "enemy," responsible for sending "thousands" of Blacks to prison, according to one attack ad.

One White House staffer has compared Harris' voice to that of Marge Simpson, the cartoon figure from The Simpsons. Really?

On social media, Deadline reports racist and sexist posts have flooded Internet since Biden named Harris as his running mate last Monday. According Recode, Zignal Labs reports that there have been “more than 150,000 instances of people sharing, discussing, or promoting misinformation online related to Harris in the past week.”

And of course, the insulter-in-chief has already called her "nasty" and "mean." I'm sure the namecalling will likely increase as soon as someone feeds Trump some more words to his limited vocabulary.