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Vice President Harris on Monday met with several Black female activists for a private meeting in her ceremonial office, including an activist who said “f– White women” in a Zoom call just last year.
Harris met with several members of the Black Women Leaders and Allies, including Cora Masters Barry, a donor to President Biden and an appointee of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Melanie Campbell who leads the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
During the private meeting, Harris heard ideas from activists regarding civil rights and voting issues.
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However, some of the activists Harris met with have a history of making controversial statements about other races.
“F– White women,” Barry said in a November 2020 Zoom call video with Campbell. “Excuse me — forget the White women. They’re going to do what the White men tell them to do.”
“They be smiling in their faces, they want to stay in charge,” Barry continued with Campbell reacting affirmatively in the background. “I don’t care nothing about them, we gotta do what we gotta do.”
She also attacked supporters of then-President Trump, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan by saying, “I’m not saying everyone who voted for Trump is wearing a white sheet, but they got one in their closet and it comes out when we start messing with the economic value or the balance of power.”
Barry also said at the time that, should Biden win the 2020 election, her group has “got to start organizing to make sure that the next President of the United States is a Black woman.”
President Joe Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris, arrives to speak before signing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
“And that’s not going to happen if we don’t reach all of our Black people, because they’re the ones who are going to put her in there,” Barry added. “Those White folks ain’t gonna put her in there.”
Later on during the Zoom live stream, Barry said that her group has “gotta get real serious” about getting Harris in the Oval Office.
Additionally, Barry received a shout-out from notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan during soul singer Aretha Franklin’s funeral in 2018, calling her his “dear sister” and telling her to “go ahead and get as many of our people as you can to vote.”
Campell has her own share of controversies, too, having defended former Women’s March co-chair Mallory when she faced accusations of anti-Semitism before stepping down from The Women’s March, sharing a petition in support of Mallory.
“Black women all over the nation and Diaspora stand [in] solidarity and support of our #sistar leader TamikaDMallory #IStandwithTamikaMallory,” Campbell wrote on Twitter in 2018.
Mallory was one of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation’s President’s Circle Leadership Award Honorees in 2020.
WASHINGTON, DC – August 30: Political activists Melanie Campbell who heads the Black Womens Roundtable, a collection of black women activists across America, on Capitol Hill in the Russell Senate office building rotunda in Washington DC on Friday August 30, 2019. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Mallory faced backlash after she said that the controversial Farrakhan was the “greatest of all time because of what he’s done in black communities.” She had been seen attending an event where Farrakhan said that “the powerful Jew is my enemy.”
Mallory later wrote, “As I continue to grow and learn as both an activist and as a woman, I will continue to grapple with the complicated nature of working across ideological lines and the question of how to do so without causing harm to vulnerable people.”
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Monday’s meeting between Harris and the activists was not the first time Harris has met with Barry and Campbell — the vice president previously met with the activist in July for a “voting rights listening session.”
A spokesperson for Barry and Campbell told Fox News Barry’s statement came from an episode of her podcast “Nothing New Under the Sun” and that Barry was discussing the 2020 election results as well as the trend over the past two presidential elections that saw White women vote for Republican candidates.
The spokesperson said the comment was in reference to how White women are not as reliable Democratic voters and that the vice president was not part of the conversation.
The vice president’s office did not respond to Fox News’ questions regarding whether Harris agreed with Barry’s statements, the nature of their relationship and if she welcomes her support, as well as what kind of message the administration sends by hosting meetings with activists who have a history of controversial statements.
Fox News’ Evie Fordham contributed reporting.
