A long-shot Republican challenger to Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley in Massachusetts, who says the incumbent’s campaign organizer insulted her interracial marriage, yelled at Democratic Rep. Joseph Kennedy III during a recent press event for accepting the woman’s support in his Senate bid.
Rayla Campbell can be heard in an online video shouting at Kennedy, who is trying to oust Democratic Sen. Ed Markey in the Sept. 1 Democratic primary, about Pressley campaign manager Monica Cannon-Grant.
“You going denounce the bigot behind you?” Campbell said to Kennedy, also appearing at the event. “I’m melanin-adjacent, according to her. You going [to] say something about that? She went on a 40-minute racial tirade about my family, about me, about me being married to a white man,” Campbell said to Kennedy.
“Talking about how people should shoot me in the head. She called me a n****r! A n***er! Alright? And you’re standing there, celebrating her. I’m running for Congress against Ayanna Pressley. Do I need this from someone I don’t even know?”
Kennedy would not respond to Campbell’s questions and waited until law enforcement escorted the Republican away.
Campbell, a black woman, appeared on SiriusXM Patriot’s The Wilkow Majority on Tuesday and talked with radio host Andrew Wilkow about Grant, who insulted her one month ago for her marriage to a white man.
“Her campaign manager happened to go on a huge racial bigoted tirade against me. Monica against me. My family, calling me all sorts of derogatory names, saying my husband’s a white supremacist, and I hang out with KKK members,” Campbell told Wilkow. “She called me melanin-adjacent. She said Harriet Tubman would have shot me. I’m a house n****r, and she called me straight up a n****r. She said that I forgot what color I am.”
Cannon-Grant made Campbell the target of an online video diatribe about Campbell’s interracial marriage. Pressley never denounced her campaign staffer’s tirade and refused to comment about it to the Washington Examiner.
“I’ll be damned if I let this melanin-adjacent woman whose proximity to white supremacy is so disgusting be disrespectful to our congresswoman because white folks have convinced her that she be drinking the water,” Cannon-Grant said in the video. “I guess white folks convinced her that she was better. I don’t know. She’s an exceptional negro? Is that what it is? She cross county lines to disrespect a white woman.”
After the video emerged, Cannon-Grant, who runs the anti-violence nonprofit group called Violence in Boston, posted a statement on the organization’s Facebook page about her tirade.
“I do wish I had been more careful with my words when I commented about an individual seeking public office last week, and for that I take responsibility — this work requires more from me right now, and I’m learning to deal with this bigger spotlight,” Cannon-Grant said.
Campbell, who’s running a write-in campaign in an attempt to get on the November ballot, said she wants apologies from both Cannon-Grant and Kennedy but called Cannon-Grant’s statement an “unapology video.”
Pressley was elected to the House in 2018 after ousting a 20-year Democratic congressman in the primary. She represents a district, based in Boston and Cambridge, that has a +34 Democratic advantage, according to the Cook Political Report.
