During former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before Congress last week, a Twitter user jokingly tweeted: “It’s Sen Harris’s turn to question Comey…wonder if she’ll get through questioning without a male colleague telling her to be more polite.” The comment referenced the treatment of Sen. Kamala Harris during a Senate intelligence committee hearing a week prior, when she was interrupted and admonished by Republican colleagues during her questioning of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and told to let him finish his answers.
Harris, a Democrat from California and potential 2020 presidential contender, is the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate. The interruption and her singling out was blatant enough that it did not go unnoticed by news outlets and observers, including fellow Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who immediately following the incident tweeted: “Silencing @SenKamalaHarris for not being ‘courteous’ enough is just unbelievable. Keep fighting, Kamala! #NeverthelessShePersisted”
Warren herself was silenced on the Senate floor in February by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) when attempting to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King in 1986 opposing the nomination of Jeff Sessions to become a federal judge. Warren’s silencing spurred the Nevertheless She Persisted hashtag.
