I don't think there's any harm in learning Python first. I think they may be harm in learning C first - it's much more likely to frustrate people and potentially even put them off programming.
This is the same reason I dislike Java as a teaching language: having to tell people "don't worry about what public static void main(String[] args) means just yet" when teaching "hello world" isn't a great introduction to programming.
This is exactly why I have always thought that the move to Java for intro courses was a terrible idea.
C/C++ were never ideal for beginners, but it was still possible to strip it down to building blocks without immediately resorting "don't worry about this now."
I agree. Except during that first C lecture when reading console input and was told 'don't worry about the ampersand, just remember to use it for scanf variables, we'll get to that later'.
Java is so deeply OOP that there's just no way for somebody to grasp and understand the concept of e.g., a public method when they haven't even learned about variables or basic conditional logic yet. A total novice just plain isn't equipped to handle some of the concepts that are immediately thrown at them with a simple hello world.
C is important to know, but there's lots of stuff you need to learn before that.