The White House on Wednesday avoided commenting on recent outrage over a planned comedy “roast” of Vice President Kamala Harris on the University of South Carolina campus.
The event is steeped in controversy due to the event’s vulgar advertising and the involvement of far-right extremist figures, conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInnes, the co-founder of Proud Boys, a designated white supremacist hate group.
Uncensored America, a nonprofit that bills itself as an organization fighting for freedom of speech, is hosting the event. Advertisement for the scheduled Sept. 18 campus event makes vulgar and sexual references to Harris, the nation’s first female vice president.
In a letter condemning the event, the NAACP, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, said of the advertisement, “Lest there be any doubt of the obscene nature of the image, rather than listing the Vice President’s name as Kamala, the advertisement changes the first three letters to a vulgar term for semen.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson and the group’s South Carolina state conference president, Brenda Murphy, called on USC President Michael Amiridis and the institution’s board of trustees to cancel the event.
During a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, press secretary and spokesperson for President Joe Biden, declined to comment specifically about the University of South Carolina campus roast. Jean-Pierre told theGrio she wasn’t “familiar with this particular event” but reiterated President Biden’s praise of Harris as the “best decision” of his political career when selecting her as his vice president.
“I can’t speak to every racist, misogynistic, sexist comment that’s been out there,” said the White House spokesperson.
Jean-Pierre, who is the first Black and openly LGBTQ person to serve as White House press secretary, added, “I would speak for my colleagues here. I think we are very much all proud to have the vice president as our vice president, and the work that we have seen her do with this president for the past three and a half years.”
She said President Biden is also “proud” of Harris and the intentionally diverse administration they were able to build and lead together.
Critics of the USC campus event say it goes beyond free speech and exposes its students, particularly its Black student population, to hate speech and a hostile environment.
Johnson and Murphy of the NAACP point out in their letter that Black female students who objected to the campus “roast” on social media have been subjected to “racist, misogynistic, sexually explicit and lewd verbal attacks” after Yiannopoulos reposted their posts on his social media platform, which includes hundreds of thousands of followers.
South Carolina state Senator Tameika Isaac Devine also issued a letter calling for President Amiridis to cancel the campus event. Devine argued that it not only violates the institution’s policy on discrimination but also sends the “wrong message to students, faculty, alumni and donors” and will “harm the progress” the university has made toward establishing reconciliation after previously confronting its “challenged history with race.”
“I adamantly oppose our state-funded institution providing a platform to individuals or groups that promote hatred, division, and violence, and I strongly urge the university to reconsider hosting such a harmful event,” said Devine.
The NAACP noted that inviting McInnes and Yiannopoulos, in particular, poses a great danger to the student body and campus personnel. The leaders of the organization pointed out that the extremist leaders and the Proud Boys have a “history of violence,” including the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“As President, you have a duty to protect the students who have chosen to matriculate at USC, your employees, and campus guests,” said their letter. “We urge you to make the correct decision and cancel the proposed event.”
A petition led by students calling on the university to pull out of hosting the campus roast has garnered nearly 25,000 signatures. In a letter reported by the local TV news station Wis10, USC President Amiridis refused to cancel the event, which he said is organized by the student chapter of Uncensored America and is “not endorsed by the university.”
“We remain steadfast in safeguarding the First Amendment rights of our students, even when we may be offended by their choices and statements,” he said.
Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has repeatedly been the target of racist and sexist attacks from Republicans and conservatives. In a recent interview with CNN, Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian descent, chose to take the high road when asked about her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, falsely claiming she decided to “turn Black” for political reasons.
“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please,” said the vice president.
Democrats and strategists have previously told theGrio that Harris and her campaign should remain focused on running a campaign that keeps the attention on American voters and the issues that matter to them — not cheap shots lobbed against her by her opposition.
“I think that what we’re witnessing is the fear that we’ve got a very strong candidate and a very qualified candidate who will be able to prosecute the case against Donald Trump, and at the same time share the contrast in the two visions for this country,” said U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Delaware. Blunt Rochester is also a national co-chair of the Harris-Walz campaign.
“Our focus is to keep our eyes on the prize. It is winning. It is keeping that momentum going,” she told theGrio. “You want to get across that finish line … But I think they may be struggling to figure out how to define her, and we already know how to define her as a leader.”
