#ADOS, which Moore co-founded with former congressional aide turned YouTube political commentator Yvette Carnell, believes that descendants of slaves in the United States have a primary claim to reparations, due to the atrocity of slavery itself, as well as the disenfranchisement of former slaves after emancipation. Following this logic, Harris cannot claim the mantle of black struggle even if she is phenotypically black. In January Carnell made a similar point when she argued that Harris was claiming “a lineage that doesn’t belong to her.” She further insinuated that Harris probably descends from an Indian “elite caste,” because her “grandfather was a diplomat,” and that her father being Jamaican did not make him an “#AmericanDOS.” Of course, with this kind of thinking, Barack Obama, who was born to a white mother and a Kenyan father, would be similarly disqualified.
Facing criticism from people who argued that critiquing Harris's identity was akin to birtherism, Moore and Carnell have tried to distance themselves from any racial invective launched Harris’s way. They argued that their main problem with her was her horrific record on criminal justice. However, their focus on Harris’s parentage implies a belief that one’s lineage is consequential, and though Moore and Carnell reject the nativist label, it would be hard to argue that they are not, at the very least, black nationalists. What makes #ADOS different from the black nationalists of yore is the fact that they do not extend the struggle past American borders — their rebellion is a national one disconnected from class or international solidarity.
#ADOS has managed to synthesize the black left-wing critique of America’s origins with a right-wing belief in the inherent superiority of those who were born in America. What the movement draws from the former is a simplified argument that black people and only black people were exploited to produce the wealth of the United States, and what they draw from the latter is that this makes them and other descendants of slaves the true inheritors of American wealth. To do this, they accommodate right-wing policy, a move that is not without precedent. Marcus Garvey famously said of the KKK that they were “better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.” Dialogue with a white supremacist organization was not a contradictory move, because both agreed with the fundamental premise that America was a country for white people.