Rep. Nancy Mace, after repeatedly mispronouncing the name of Kamala Harris on a CNN panel Aug. 15, was called out for her disrespect by fellow panelist Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Vanderbilt University.
Dyson said: “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.”
The South Carolina Republican responded, “I will say Kamala’s name any way I want to.”
I challenge Mace’s assumption. A person’s name matters. Correct pronunciation of a person’s name matters. Let us no longer tolerate the nastiness of politics du jour. Let us, without apology and in no uncertain terms, see that such outbursts reveal a person of low character and habits far too corrupt for them to be allowed on national television to demean another human being.
Good manners, civility, decorum and human decency all were violated by Mace. Her disrespect for Harris was the rhetorical equivalent to being sprayed in the face with of a painful substance bearing her own name.
Mace is a sly one. She may not consciously understand the historical power of names and naming, but she has the political instincts of a typical Southern racist — the exclusionary logic of a moral equivalency linked to death. Declaring the violence of mispronouncing Kamala’s name has nothing to do with racism points out a privileged ethic of provocation underwritten by a history of excluding, demeaning and abusing women. Mace carries on an old family trait of oppressors — an obscene form of loyalty to a systemic racism and sexism.
As soon as someone with a deeper sense of the power in a name points out Mace’s obscenities, she slips into the ball gown of outrage: “Oh, so now you’re calling me racist. That is BS. That is complete BS.”
“Denial has become the new cover for systemic racism.”
Denial has become the new cover for systemic racism. Mace defended her disrespect for Harris: “The Left would rather talk about pronouns and pronunciation than policy.”
In her weird calculus, criticism of her disrespect equals left-wing obsession with transgender identity and pronouns. And somehow, she thinks her remarks have something to do with policy. If refusing to correctly pronounce a person’s name is now policy for Republicans, then their policy is racism.
Perhaps Mace has forgotten history’s way of ignoring women, especially women of color and foreign women. In the Bible, of all places, women often have no names. To deprive a person of a name is to take away their humanity.
Yet in the Christian tradition, we find our names called in the waters of baptism. Traditionally, at the moment of baptism, the minister calls the new believer’s name and declares, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
A person’s name matters too much to allow others to trample on it in brazen acts of disrespect. When Mary went to the garden on Easter morning, she didn’t know Jesus until he called her name: “Mary.” She would have known that voice anywhere.
To attack someone’s name is, without equivocation, a personal and deeply hurtful assault. Apart from the rudeness of Nancy Mace, there’s a lot going on in her refusal to say Kamala’s name correctly.
“To attack someone’s name is, without equivocation, a personal and deeply hurtful assault.”
Make no mistake. Mace mispronounced “Kamala” repeatedly to make a point of putting her in a “one down” position. She may whine about not being racist as much as she wants, but this was an act of dehumanization — the mother ship of racism.
Mace learned this rhetorical gambit from her male counterparts. Women, by and large, don’t engage in “one down” and “one up” communication trips. They are not as geared for ego protection as men. Women, according to Deborah Tannen in You Just Don’t Understand, are usually not involved in public displays of putting other women down and “in their place.”
Yet Mace obliterates all the usual communication skills of women — building rapport, supporting, uplifting, empathy, compassion — to launch an attack on another woman’s name in the spirit of her party’s hero, Donald Trump.
Mace attempts to use name-signaling as a way of suggesting Harris is not worthy of having her name pronounced correctly. Therefore, in Mace’s weird linguistics, Harris is not qualified to be president. She has an odd sounding name. It’s another version of giving someone a demeaning nickname.
Naming may be the most important theological concept in the book of Genesis. “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”
There is nothing like hearing your name called out. There’s a story in the Bible that talks about God’s book of life. All the names of the saved for in the book and all the names will be called. There are no mistakes in the book. When the Lord calls your name, your name will not be mispronounced. You will be called by your name, your unique and special name.
Your name is your first stake in having a place to stand, a place to be, a person to become. Your name is all you have.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 10 books, including his latest, Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy.