Tucker Carlson Blasts Dem Strategist Attacking Him Over Kamala Harris' Name
Fox News host Tucker Carlson is in the hot seat again, this time for mispronouncing newly minted vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ first name on his show Tuesday.
Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton adviser Richard Goodstein, Carlson’s guest at the time, immediately pounced, declaring Carlson’s mispronunciation disrespectful.
“Her name is pronounced ‘comma’ — like the punctuation mark — ‘la.’ Seriously, I’ve heard every sort of bastardization of that. That’s how it is. ‘Comma-la,’ ” Goodstein said.
Carlson’s response was simple: “I unintentionally mispronounced her name. … So what?”
Tucker Carlson loses it when a guest corrects his pronunciation of Kamala Harris’s name pic.twitter.com/1fHIrPGuwN
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) August 12, 2020
Goodstein explained further that, for a minority woman on a national election ticket, correctly pronouncing her name is a “bare minimum” sign of respect.
“So I’m disrespecting her by mispronouncing her name unintentionally? So it begins,” Carlson said, grinning.
The host got a little heated in the exchange, as he is wont to do, but he makes an important point.
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Journalists and commentators should, of course, endeavor to pronounce people’s names correctly. However, mistakes happen. And when they do, it can be useful to correct the pronunciation for future use, but it’s also important to move past the mistake to the substance of the conversation.
In the interview with Carlson, Goodstein appeared unwilling to move on.
Carlson and Goodstein’s exchange likely is a preview of the next three months. Now that Harris is Joe Biden’s running mate, the left will use her intersectional credentials as a shield against any criticism of her thinking.
The left ran this kind of cover for President Barack Obama for more than eight years. Criticism of his policies was conflated with criticism of the man, and any criticism of the man must be based on his race. By that logic, the only reason one might criticize Obama’s policies is because one is racist.
That’s absurd, obviously. People can, and did, take issue with many of Obama’s policies regardless of his race, not because of it.
In 2020, the left undoubtedly will apply the same logic to any attempted criticism of Harris’ policies. Never mind that she’s extremely radical. If you disagree with her, you must be racist or sexist.
More broadly, for years now the far left has claimed that things like mispronouncing a person’s name are microaggressions, akin to committing violence against the person. They encourage people to feel like victims over every perceived slight, instead of assuming that most people generally are doing the best they can.
Mispronunciations are common across all races and regions. No one knows how to pronounce every word or name. A few years ago, Dictionary.com even ran a Twitter thread on words that bookworms mispronounce because they were learned through reading.
Names can be particularly difficult. That’s why J.K. Rowling, in the fourth Harry Potter book, had Hermione Granger sound out her name for Viktor Krum: It gave Rowling an opportunity to educate hordes of confused readers.
Kamala Harris knows her name is uncommon. In 2016, while campaigning for the Senate, she released a video of children explaining how to correctly say “Kamala.”
People pronounce my name many different ways. Let #KidsForKamala show you how it’s done. pic.twitter.com/7QoQGN0B4k
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 24, 2016
Of course it’s important to pronounce the names of public officials — or anyone else — correctly.
But when someone unintentionally makes a mistake, it’s better to show a little grace than to assume malicious intent.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
