Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) fired back at GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday after he referred to her and social justice author Ibram Kendi as “modern grand wizards” of the “modern KKK.”
While speaking on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation on Sunday with Rev. Al Sharpton, Pressley said, “The verbal assault lobbied against myself and Dr. Kendi is shameful. It is deeply offensive, and it is dangerous,” adding that she is “squarely focused on the work of undoing the centuries of harm that has precisely been done to Black Americans and charting a path of true restorative justice and racial justice forward.
“It is not that long ago that we were besieged by images of White supremacists carrying tiki torches in Charlottesville. It was not that long ago that a White supremacist mob seized the Capitol, waving Confederate flags and erecting nooses on the West Lawn of the Capitol,” she said.
After Pressley’s statement, Ramaswamy held his ground, telling CNN host Dana Bash on Sunday, “I stand by what I said to provoke an open and honest discussion in this country.”
“There are many Americans today who are deeply frustrated by the new culture of anti-racism, how it’s really racism in new clothing,” Ramaswamy said, reiterating the point he initially made during an Iowa campaign event Friday that modern racism “comes from the modern left” and that it is part of “a dogma in this country.”
During Friday’s event in Iowa, Ramaswamy was responding to a voter’s question about whether he has experienced racism in recent years. He said of Pressley, “She’s a member of the ‘Squad,’” and quoted Pressley from a 2019 campaign event, saying, “Her words not mine: ‘We don’t want any more Black faces that don’t want to be a Black voice. We don’t want any more Brown faces that don’t want to be a Brown voice.’”
He then turned his attention to Kendi, reading the opening lines from his book “How To Be Antiracist.”
“Here’s what it says,” Ramaswamy said on Friday, NBC reported. “Opening lines: ‘The remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
“These aren’t my words,” Ramaswamy said. “These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.”
