Kuh-MAL-a. Kuh-MEL-a. Camel-a.
Nearly half of the speakers who have used Vice President Harris’s first name in the first three days of this week’s Republican National Convention have pronounced it incorrectly.
Whether by mistake or intentionally, some of Harris’s political opponents have repeatedly mispronounced her name. Among the speakers at the convention doing so are members of Congress and a governor.
Harris has drawn attention from the Republican speakers amid calls from within the Democratic Party for President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race. While nearly all mentioned Biden in their speeches, just under half spoke about Harris, whom Republicans have tied to immigration by deeming her the “border czar.”
Bob Unanue, CEO of Goya Foods, went a step further Monday night, mocking her name as “‘Que-mala,’ which means ‘so bad’” in Spanish. (Kamala means lotus in Sanskrit.)
Photos by Ricky Carioti, John McDonnell, Joshua Lott, Melina Mara, Jabin Botsford, and Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post, Rebecca S. Gratz for The Washington Post, Getty Images, AFP via Getty Images, Reuters, AP and U.S. Congress.
