A member of the United Kingdom's House of Lords is facing backlash for how he referred to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
New York Post reported that Lord Kilclooney, also known as John Taylor, tweeted this Monday (November 9): “What happens if Biden moves on and the Indian becomes President. Who then becomes Vice President?”
Harris is the daughter of an Indian American mother and a Jamaican American father. She is the first woman and woman of color to be elected as the U.S. vice president.
"Jon Wolfsthal, a former special adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, told Kilclooney that he 'should be ashamed' and reminded him that Harris 'is American,'" NY Post wrote.
“This is an offensive way to refer to anyone, let alone a woman who has just made history," Speaker Lord Fowler remarked, asking Kilclooney to apologize and retract his comment. “The comment is entirely unacceptable and has no place in British politics. I could not be clearer." Other UK politicians expressed their anger over Kilclooney's comments, some even claiming they will report him.
While Kilclooney did withdraw his comment, he did not apologize and claimed the tweet wasn't racist.
“Whilst Biden is proud to be Irish and Harris is rightly proud of her Indian background I certainly withdraw my reference to her as an Indian as it seems to have upset some people,” he tweeted. “I did not know her name and identified her with the term Indian. Most people understood. Racist NO,” he said.
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