That's Not My Name

Mace, Mockery and Mispronunciation

In 1972, Liza Minnelli, riding the enormous success of her Oscar-winning performance in Cabaret, made history. Her one woman show, Liza With a Z, aired on NBC, the first nationally televised filmed concert. It would go on to win four Emmys and a Peabody Award. The title derives from the novelty song, “Say Liza,” written for Minnelli by her longtime collaborators, John Kander and Fred Ebb, which comically bewails the apparent difficulty people have pronouncing her name (“It’s Liza with a ‘Z,’ not Lisa with an ‘S,’ ‘cause Lisa with an ‘S’ goes “ss” not “zz”). Here’s the bridge:

Every Sandra who's a Sondra
Every Mary who's really Marie
Every Joan who is a Joanne
Has got to agree with me when I'm announced
I don't mind being pummeled or trampled or trounced
But it does drive you bats to be Miss Mispronounced!

I don’t find Liza’s name particularly difficult to pronounce, but the number is a classic. It came to mind after I watched the recent kerfuffle on CNN between Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace and professor Michael Eric Dyson, over Mace’s consistent mispronunciation of Kamala Harris’s first name: ka-MAH-la instead of KAH-muh-la.

Nancy Mace and Michael Eric Dyson on CNN

In the CNN video, Mace is corrected, with good humor, several times, by another panelist, commentator Keith Boykin. Boykin even chuckles at her gaffe at one point, whilst repeating “KAM-ala, KAM-ala!” Mace corrects herself (she does—watch the video) before continuing her points…but, moments later, she fumbles again—and is corrected again by Boykin: “You almost got it!” Mace flippantly remarks, “I will say Ka-MA-la’s name any way I want!”

Oh, Nancy. You should have quit while you were ahead, because here comes Michael Eric Dyson, with his special brand of antiracist fire and brimstone:

“You mispronounce her, and you also misjudge her,” Dyson comments, as a smirking Nancy doubles down, repeating “Ka-MAH-la” over and over. The gloves come off. Dyson—who I find to be one of the most odious, self righteous blowhards on the planet—brow furrowed, head shaking in righteous disgust, starts to preachify, and it’s a shameless display of manipulative double speak:

“This congresswoman (Mace) 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—but that’s the history and legacy of white disregard for the humanity of black people!” “Oh, so now you’re calling me a racist!” Mace shoots back, as the temperature in the room starts to rise. Dyson, who obviously doesn’t consider Mace ‘wonderful,’ nevertheless denies he’s accusing her of bigotry, shouting, “You don’t have to intend racism to accomplish it!” The panel goes off the rails, as Mace is called out for her ‘disrespect’ of Harris.

I may be splitting hairs here, but I don’t think that Mace, a southern Republican who wants Harris to lose and Trump to win, is required to show any special respect for Harris, her political enemy, regardless of her race or gender. I’ve seen Mace in action during congressional hearings—’nice’ is not her superpower. Dyson played on this during the CNN fracas, and his tactic worked. He derailed the policy conversation that Mace was trying to have, and made it all about framing Republicans as bigots. This is a problem for Harris supporters, and the campaign, in my opinion. Constantly framing Harris as a woman of color facing the bigotry of the white supremacist GOP, instead of requiring her and her surrogates to produce detailed policy proposals, and defend them publicly in forums like this CNN panel, undermines Harris while underestimating the intelligence of the electorate.

Mispronunciation of names is a time-honored, cheap political tactic employed to belittle one’s opponents. Kamala Harris’s first name is unusual, certainly—and ethnic, no doubt—but do we think Mace was persistently butchering it here out of racism? I’m unconvinced. Activists like Dyson see racism everywhere; it’s an obsession. I think he gets it wrong here. To start with, ‘Kamala’ is not a “black” name. It’s a Hindi name meaning lotus, and I’m sure was given to Harris by her Indian mother.

Donna Brazile, butchering Vivek Ramaswamy’s name beside Adam Kinzinger on Real Time With Bill Maher

According to babbel.com, their list of the Most Mispronounced Words of 2023 included the name of entrepreneur and GOP Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy [vih-VAKE rah-mah-SWAH-me]. Ramaswamy, himself of Indian and Hindu descent—and with a way more exotic moniker than VP Harris’s—was the subject of another mispronunciation scandal just last year. Former DNC chair Donna Brazile came under fire over an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, during which she intentionally botches Ramaswamy’s name. When corrected by Maher, Brazile says, “Well, whatever,” and continues to goof around. Maher pushes back: “I just feel like there’s something wrong with everybody refusing to learn how to say his name. I just feel there’s a little racism there.” Brazile giggles, and shrugs it off.

Interestingly, I couldn’t find any commentary online from Michael Eric Dyson, condemning Brazile’s “disrespect” or stating, as he did on CNN, that “you don’t have to intend racism to accomplish it.” Hmm. Is it because Vivek isn’t black? If he’d been half Indian and half black, as Harris is, would Dyson have called Donna out for her insensitivity? Or are we being asked again to buy the fallacy that black people can’t be racist? By goofing on Ramaswamy’s name, Brazile showed open disrespect for a person of color and a candidate for President on live TV. Wrong, stupid, and exactly the same thing Mace did. So, what gives?

Dyson and many others were also silent just this week, when former President Bill Clinton made the gaffe of mispronouncing ‘Kamala’ during his DNC speech. No one called him a racist, or said he was disrespecting Harris. Christopher Tremoglie, in The Washington Examiner, notes: “It’s almost as if there is one set of rules for Democrats who mispronounce “Kamala” and another set of rules for Republicans who do it.” Tremoglie (try pronouncing that one!) quotes Nancy Mace in his piece. “There was an entire panel frothing at the mouth to jump over the table to correct me, but as hypocrisy is the hallmark of the Left, we fully expect they will stay silent and let Bill Clinton pronounce her name however he wants.”

Now, I’m siding with neither the Left nor the Right on this issue, because wrong is wrong, and shitty conduct is shitty conduct. Bill Clinton fumbled Kamala’s name on the national stage, but he didn’t mean to (any more than President Biden has, the many times he’s botched her name). Mace fumbled too—but then she decided to be a dick, and there’s a difference. If you read me regularly, you will note that I come for both sides when people act like assholes. Even if you lack respect for your enemy and seek their ignominious defeat, intentionally mispronouncing their name just makes you look like a douche. Dyson’s reflexive screed, in that CNN video, characterizing Mace’s wrong pronunciation as perpetuating the “history and legacy of white disregard for the humanity of black people” is specious and inflammatory. Injecting it into the debate, however, was good politics—making it all about race produced fantastic click bait for the left wing media, and Dyson and his fellow panelists never had to address anything substantive about Harris and her policies. So they were kinda dicks, too.

I think Nancy Mace is obnoxious. I’m not defending her persistent rudeness toward the sitting Vice President. It made her look petty and juvenile—but then, petty and juvenile seem to be her brand. Donna Brazile is one of the tackiest, loudmouth idiots in politics, so this was just another day for her. Michael Eric Dyson is smug and insufferable, and his snide insinuations of racism—made to Mace’s face on live TV—whilst he simultaneously professed not to think she’s racist—were indefensibly hypocritical, and just as rude as Mace’s bitchy butchery of Harris’s name.

Let’s just call it like it is: everyone could and should do better, especially those who purport to be leaders. This stuff about people’s names and how you say them shouldn’t be about respect or racial sensitivity—it should be about courtesy. Respect and courtesy are two different things. One can be courteous to someone one has absolutely no respect for—and such conduct can make you look really good. You get to be the bigger person. Whatever happened to “when they go low, we go high?”

Ah well. That’s politics.