Georgia Sen. David Perdue might have gone viral for making fun of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s name during a campaign stop in Macon earlier this year, but he won’t be getting the last laugh if a group of prominent South Asian Americans gets its way.
The group wasn’t amused by Perdue’s seemingly intentional inability to string together the six letters in Harris’s first name in October.
Whether it was on purpose — he called her “Kamala-mala-mala, or I don’t know, whatever” — or if he just got caught up in the Macon-rally moment, his words are coming back to haunt him.
Harris’s niece, Meena Harris, along with former Funny or Die executive producer Brad Jenkins and the Indian American Fund, is reviving the #MyNameIs campaign ahead of Perdue’s runoff race against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff on Jan. 5.
A Perdue win could mean Republicans hold on to power in the U.S. Senate. A loss could tip the balance of power to Democrats, with Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
“It started from that viral internet campaign, and we’re just bringing it to life,” Jenkins told the Hollywood Reporter. “It’s great that we got Trump out, but as Asian Americans, as Americans, we have to sort of finish the job and ensure we have a Senate that can work with Joe Biden.”
In the video, Silicon Valley star Kumail Nanjiani says, “South Asian Americans helped build this country, even though at times we’ve been pushed aside and put down or made into a punchline. In 2020, when our leaders insulted and disrespected us, they know exactly what they’re doing, and so do we.”
Other actors involved in the project include Kal Penn, Nik Dodani, and Aparna Nancherla. In the video, the actors, as well as Asian American and Pacific Islander organizers in Georgia, are shown reciting their names. The goal is not only to boost the #MyNameIs campaign but also to encourage more than 100,000 South Asian American voters in Georgia to turn out for the runoff.
“We were all united in that feeling of, ‘We’re not going to allow this guy to make the future vice president of the United States feel like she was un-American because of her name,'” Jenkins said.
After Perdue’s comments, his communication director, John Burke, defended Perdue and said he “simply mispronounced” the name of the woman he had worked alongside in the U.S. Senate for three years.
Nanjiani pushed back.
“Well, senator, while you simply mispronounced our names, we simply voted Donald Trump out of office. We simply registered millions of voters. We simply turned out in record numbers. But don’t worry, senator, we don’t mean anything by it.”
Jenkins also took issue with Perdue’s support of Trump, a president Jenkins said contributed to the rise in hate crimes against the Asian American community following Trump’s insistence that the coronavirus pandemic was China’s fault.
