UPDATED: In Chiding Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Richard Burr Exercised Sexist White Privilege | Blog#42

In Chiding Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Richard Burr Exercised Sexist White Privilege | Blog#42

Senator Richard Burr, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stepped in right as Senator Harris was finishing a lengthy, but pointed question of Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, about the authority and independence granted Richard H. Mueller in his appointment as Special Counsel.  Harris had already had one go around with Rosenstein who, quite clearly, did not want to answer no. At the point at which Burr, again, cut in, Harris was just about to finish round two:

Sure enough, Rosenstein, again, dodged the one word answer he was asked to give.

Would Burr have dared pull the same stunt with Dianne Feinstein? One of his male fellow committee members? After all, they all regularly interject during testimony.

Why was Kamala Harris deemed rude when she was merely doing what any prosecutor will do in order to elicit an answer? Rosenstein, clearly, was evading the yes or no answer he was asked to give. Harris had every right to make him comply.

Burr’s behavior was just as ugly in the sexism that was put on display, as Senator Mitch McConnell’s with Elizabeth Warren just a few months back.  But Burr went just a bit further than McConnell in his criticism for a lack of courtesy being accorded to witnesses. That “lack of courtesy” is racist code for rude Black woman. It’s ugly and Burr needs to be called out for it. Kamala Harris, an accomplished prosecutor and the former Attorney General of the sixth largest world economy, doesn’t need lessons in comportment from anyone – least of all Mr. Burr.


UPDATE: Senator Burr, again, cut off Senator Kamala Harris during her questioning of Jeff Sessions.

12 thoughts on “UPDATED: In Chiding Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Richard Burr Exercised Sexist White Privilege | Blog#42”

  1. I’m just curious to know Rima, if you think books like Tom Sawyer, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which incorporate the n-word, should be banned.

    1. Absolutely not. I don’t condone banning or burning books.

      Just curious… how did you jump from Kamala Harris being silenced to Tom Sawyer?

      1. This forum is confusing. I read your statement on Bill Maher, and eent to comment on it, and somehow ended up in the comment section on Kamala Harris.

        1. Now, you make sense!

          What platform are you reading the blog from? If you click on a post, then any comment you make should appear under that post.

  2. Comparing apples and oranges. The reason he cut off Camilla is because she interupted him 18 times in one exchange, it had nothing to do with her race. But of course you people always want to divide people by race and jump to assumptions about everything

    1. Are you serious with that? Someone tells you, be more inclusive and stop abusing people and you say that we’re the ones who are divisive? Spend two seconds just thinking about that. Please.

      1. Yes, because you are falsley accusing people of not being inclusive and accusing them falsley of racism.

        1. Hmm, let’s see. What do you think of Mexicans? Are they taking jobs from Americans or stealing welfare benefits? What about Muslims? Are they all terrorists? Do you support building the wall? Are Black people lazy? Are Jews treacherous? Do you cross the street when you are walking towards someone of color? What about abortion? Do you believe women have the right to make their own choices? Do you think Russians hacked the election?

          The problem here is twofold. If you don’t believe any of these things, but support Republicans or the conservative agenda, then you are supporting people who are very racist. If you do believe these things and don’t see anything wrong with such ideals, then I’ve got some news for you. Try reading the preamble to the Constitution again and when you get to the parts where it talks about everyone, see if you have any exceptions.

          That will tell you all you need to know.

          1. I do not believe any of those things. I voted for Hillary and volunteered for Obama in 2008 and 2012. I use to be very hard left but I have moved away from the left in the past year explicitly because of people like you who reactionarily call everyone a racist and who’s gut reaction is to try and tie every human behavior to race rather than recognizing 100 other more logical reasons for behaviors. Many in the left have become complete virtue signalers who’s only purpose is to lambast people with whom they disagree with the most vile insults simply to get a pat on the back from other like-minded individuals.

            It does not matter what side of the isle I am on. As another human being I believed that it is my duty to defend people from unfounded accusations regardless of their political beliefs. If your whole argument really boils down to “well they are Republicans so it is OK to slander them” then I suggest you take a good, hard look at your moral compass. The obvious reason for him cutting off Sen. Harris is that she interrupted him 18 times in a single exchange. You trying to tie this to sexism and racism racism is simply a way for you to try and fill a void in yourself and make yourself feel like you’re standing up to some great evil when, in fact, you are that evil.

          2. Wow. Two BIG things here. One, you voted for Hillary, the poster child of neo-liberalism, and volunteered for Obama, the most promising liberal president who turned out to be a secret centrist, and you think you were hard left? Hilarious. Two is a question: Have you ever seen a House or Senate committee hearing? I don’t think you have.

            They all interrupt each other all the time. Unless someone is handing out praise like candy on Halloween, the interruptions never stop. Why? Because nobody ever answers any questions ever asked! It’s all redirection this and dissemble that. And yet, Kamala Harris, Black and female, gets shut down and shut up for doing the very thing her esteemed colleagues, both male AND female get away with ALL THE TIME.

            Simple conclusion; uppity Black woman gotta shut up, know her place. All this self-righteous indignance at being called out or having those values you wear so proudly on your sleeve being questioned is just bloviating. If you truly are a shining beacon of secular morality in the otherwise racist and nationalist riddled GOP, then you are a Unicorn, a majestically proud, but singular anomaly. The GOP exists, today, solely for the purpose of servicing the interests of capitalism and those who worship at its altar.

            Your patter is good, but there is always the tell. The dead giveaway when you start with the early whispers of ad hominem attacks (“…for you to try and fill a void in yourself…”) and, in the same breathless breath, establish yourself as the great champion of morality. I’ll leave you with something to chew on (don’t worry, it’s not bad).

            Politics and the future of America don’t have to be based on an absolutist’s view of victory. This isn’t a sports match where there must be a loser. We can all win, but we need to fight the aspects of our current political climate that are to blame, namely money, influence peddling, corporate meddling, and a billion other things like them. If you truly believe that you are not a tool of the oligarchy and the ideologies that have latched onto it, then please spend some time reflecting on why the Right wants things. A touch of logical reflection can be amazingly clarifying.

            You may find this silly, but what I want is for all people to live in peace, for all people to be given the opportunity to be healthy and educated, and for the actual truth to come to the fore again. I’m not a liberal or a conservative. If anything, I’m a social communist, just like Bernie Sanders. The happiest countries in the world are Canada and in Northern Europe where a managed blend of capitalism, socialism, and democracy are practiced. It’s not a utopia. It’s just a better way to live.

            That is all.

          3. Wow! So many falsehoods and logical fallacies. Let’s break it down:

            1) Who I voted for is completely irrelevant to anything. I thought Hillary would be better than trump, a view shared by tens of millions of Americans.

            2) Yes. I watch Senate hearings all the time on CSPAN at work. In fact, most days I will bring my computer and put on CSPAN all day in the background as I work.

            3) No, they do not all interrupt each other all the time. Most of the time, the question is asked and the question is answered. As I said, I watch plenty of Senate hearings and this act was particularly egregious. Not only due to the number of interruptions, but the fact that these interruptions were obviously being done just so she could look “tough” rather than being interruptions when people actually were not answering a question or when someone was lying. She would ask him a question and then not even let him start to answer before she interrupted. It’s not just Republicans that this happens to. If you bothered to do any research, this actually happens from time to time. Look up John McCain, it happened to him in the past. Did anyone claim it was because he was a white man? Of course not.

            4) No, the simple conclusion is not that she was shut off because of her race or gender, but rather because she was trying to grandstand to show that she was tough because she is a potential 2020 candidate and wants to show how tough and anti-trump she is, evidenced by the fact that she did not even let him answer the questions before she interrupted him. If she actually cared about the answers then she would have let him finish.

            5) Why do you keep claiming I am in the GOP? What does this have to do with me being a shining beacon of morality? If it makes me a shining beacon of morality to defend people against vile, unfounded attacks then I guess I am.

            6) No, there are plenty of reasonable, smart people on the other side of the isle. I started listening to them in the past year and they completely changed my thoughts on a lot of issues. The problem with those on the hard left such as yourself is that you dehumanize everyone who disagrees with you by calling them names like racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe etc. in order to free yourself from the burden of actually analyzing the content that they are saying. Slavery was not stopped because people said slavers were racist. Jim Crow did not end because people said it was racist. People rose up and had debates about the issues and the right side won through logic and discourse. Shouting racism does absolutely nothing other than push people like myself away from your side.

            And in response to your last paragraph, this has absolutely nothing to do with economics or race relations or anything. I believe in many of the beliefs that you hold dear to yourself. What I do not believe in is accusing people of vile things with no backing simply to try and achieve a greater political goal. That is amoral and sick and has no place in society, and if you want to call out the right for doing it when they do it then you should be standing there against the left when they do it as well.

          4. I see that you’re one of those trolls who spend a lot of time inundating people with long, winding posts, a method used to tire out the opposition and make it appear as if you know what you’re talking about. I, too, have seen the video in question, and it is clear Mr. Sessions is NOT answering the question asked of him. Mrs. Harris is asking regarding the policy. In fact, Sessions seems wholly unprepared and conveniently lacks any awareness of events regarding all of this. My estimation of him as the AG is quite poor, based on this line of questioning. A good lawyer takes notes and can commit larges amounts of data to memory to accommodate whatever task they are undertaking.

            As to the assertion that there are “plenty of reasonable, smart people on the other side of the iso [sic]”, on that we will have to disagree. In fact, I find it very difficult to believe that you personally identified as being hard left, but now see reasoned persons participating in conservative politics, such as it is today. I cannot being myself to define a reasonable person as one who takes health care away from people or allows businesses to harm people as they please in the pursuit of profit.

            As for all the other stuff, I really have no response. I didn’t actually call you a racist and I didn’t state that you were a member of the GOP. I merely offered possibilities. I don’t know you, but you claim to defend people against “vile, unfounded attacks”, but it’s clear that the definition of what constitutes an attack is rather fluid for you.

            If, as you say, you believe in the same things as I do (how you would know what I believe is beyond me, but okay), then tell me how you stand up for civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights. If you tell me that you think it’s right to take programs away from poor people, than you are against civil rights. If you tell me that you thing there is a lot of voter fraud, then you are against voting rights. If you tell me that you are for criminalizing abortion, then you are against the rights of women.

            Look, I don’t know you. I have no idea what kind of person you are. I don’t know what you do in your spare time or where you work. I don’t even know where you live. All I know is what you write on the internet, and what I’ve seen so far doesn’t impress.

            Sorry if that bothers you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *