Vice President Harris rises above GOP attacks

Shortly after presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. named U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris as his vice-presidential running mate last August, Republicans started demeaning her and calling her out of her name.

Trump launched the name-calling campaign against Senator Harris. He and fellow Republican Senator David Perdue debased her at Trump and Perdue’s joint campaign rally in Macon, Georgia. Trump called Harris “angry” and “horrible,” “nasty” and “nastier,” and accused her of being disrespectful to then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh when questioning him during his nomination hearings.

Purdue, who represented Georgia in the U.S. Senate joined Trump ‘s hate speech campaign. He mispronounced Harris’ first name, despite the fact that he had served with Harris for three years.

However, the most disrespectful, libelous attack on Harris was made by Trump supporter Robert Roy, Jr., an auto dealership owner in Salisbury, Mass., who put up a billboard that read “Joe and the Hoe: Sniff and Blow Tour 2020.” A die-hard racist like Trump, Roy has also displayed the Confederate flag and other racist and misogynistic signage on his property.

Trump-loyal Republicans rushed to join in, slandering Harris, a learned, experienced lawyer, former district attorney, California state attorney general and U.S. Senator. One of Trump’s sons, Eric Trump, favorited a tweet – which was later deleted – that referred to Harris as a “whorendous pick.”

Rush Limbaugh echoed the sign’s derogatory language and amplified an opinion article in the right-leaning American Spectator, in which Rabbi and Attorney Dov Fischer smeared Harris as a “mattress” and “escort,” and accused her of sleeping her way to the top by having an affair with a married man, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Reuters fact checked the accusation and found that Harris did date Brown more than 10 years after Brown separated from his wife.

We absolutely understand that Trump is a misogynist, as are many of his die hard supporters – birds of a feather – and it’s clear that his verbal abuse extends primarily to powerful women of color. So, we are not surprised at his hate speech leveled at Vice President Harris or the so-called “Squad,” women of color in the U.S. House of Representatives. Harris has also been accused of not being Black and not being Black enough.

The vice president has always claimed her Black roots and South Asian roots. She knows who she is and whose she is.

As for the smears, Vice President Harris didn’t even dignify the Republicans’ slanderous and libelous attacks with an answer.

However, The Louisiana Weekly is highly insulted and takes exception to the attacks on the most powerful woman in the U.S. government, Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and Black woman to hold the position.

The bottom line is our Vice President Kamala Harris is a woman of dignity and grace, even under fire. Republicans can hurl hate speech at Harris and other powerful women of color, but they will rise above it all, and not dignify the attacks with a response.

This article originally published in the February 15, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.