Thursday, during a panel discussion on CNN’s “NewsNight,” Vanderbilt professor Michael Eric Dyson and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had a heated back-and-forth exchange about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Dyson accused Mace of racism for allegedly mispronouncing Harris’ name, which Mace suggested the vice president did not know what a woman was.
Partial transcript as follows:
DYSON: That sounds — that sounds like self-hatred and justification of white supremacy. And let me just say this because this congresswoman is a wonderful human being. But when you disrespect Kamala Harris by saying you will call her whatever you want, I know you don’t intend it to be that way. That’s the history and legacy of white disregard for the humanity of black people.
MACE: So, now you’re calling me racist.
DYSON: I didn’t say it.
MACE: That is B.S. That is complete B.S.
DYSON: I just said you were racist. You don’t have to intend racism to accomplish it.
MACE: No, no. You are intending that I am racist.
DYSON: Your disrespect of Kamala Harris is part and parcel of a tradition of disrespect.
MACE: You are defensive and – it’s disgusting.
BOYKIN: Congresswoman, why can’t you just —
DYSON: I’m not calling you a racist.
MACE: You are. You are. You absolutely are.
BOYKIN: Why can’t you just hear he said?
DYSON: Disrespecting–
PHILLIP: Let me get in your key.
MACE: That is disgusting.
PHILLIP: Professor —
MACE: You know what’s disgusting to women is your disrespect of them. She doesn’t know what a woman is. And if 25 years ago I became —
DYSON: White women don’t have the ability to tell black women who paid the price of blood to make this country what it is to tell them they’re not real women.
MACE: Twenty-five years ago.
DYSON: They cared for your baby.
MACE: Twenty-five years ago, I became the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. I fought my way through it.
DYSON: So, call her name right. So, pronounce her name right.
PHILLIP: Let me ask you again.
MACE: And Kamala Harris —
DYSON: Kamala. Kamala.
MACE: I will say it anyway I want.
BOYKIN: It’s Kamala. You’re doing this on purpose, Congresswoman.
MACE: I am not.
DYSON: You’re disrespectful.
PHILLIP: Just a second.
DYSON: You can’t expect people to respect you if you can’t respect her.
MACE: If a man put on a skirt and walked that stage 25 years ago, she would have said it.
DYSON: You’re a white woman disrespecting a black woman.
MACE: She would have taken that achievement away from women.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
