Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) battled a CNN panel Thursday after members accused the congresswoman of using " racist " language in how she and other Republicans pronounce Vice President Kamala Harris's name and address her mixed ethnic background.
"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," Michael Eric Dyson, an academic and author, told Mace.
"Oh," Mace said. "So, now you're calling me racist?"
Dyson rejected the notion he called the South Carolina representative racist but argued that her language regarding Harris was racist, launching a heated exchange.
"The practice is racist," he said. "What's disgusting is your disrespect of her."
What is really disgusting is the vice president's views on women, Mace replied.
"She doesn't know what a woman is," the congresswoman said.
Dyson appeared to try and dodge Mace's comment and remained firm on his history-of-racism approach.
"White women don't have the ability to tell black women, who have paid the price of blood to make this country what it is, to tell them they're not real women," he said. "They cared for your babies and respected your humanity."
"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, tooth and nail, blood, sweat, and tears," Mace said. "Kamala Harris ... I will say it any way that I want."
Her pronunciation of "Kamala" sent the panel into a spiral.
"It's Kamala!" Keith Boykin, a previous aide to former President Bill Clinton, said emphatically with his own pronunciation. "You're doing this on purpose, congresswoman!"
As the panel began to shout over her, Mace worked to maintain her point that Harris's acceptance of gender ideology would have denied her accomplishments at the Citadel.
"If a man put on a skirt and walked that stage 25 years ago, she would have taken that achievement away from women," she said.
"You're a white woman disrespecting a black woman," Dyson said. "That's racist."
CNN's Abby Phillip eventually brought up former President Donald Trump's comments addressing Harris's mixed background.
"This doesn't take that much courage, honestly, to just say that was out of bounds," Philip said. "He said she turned black. He questioned whether she was really black."
"I mean, I didn't say it, and I would not say it," Mace said.
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Panel members then demanded she rebuke Trump's comments on Harris, and Boykin accused Mace of belonging to "a cult."
"I'm not in a cult. Are you kidding me?" Mace replied. "The fact that you talk to women this way is ridiculous."
Mace replied on X Friday, posting the viral clip of the interview.
"The most unhinged, sexist, left-winged radicals hyperfixated about how I pronounce Kamala’s name last night. Meanwhile, Kamala’s still hiding from the media. Embarrassing," Mace wrote.
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