Critics suggest Indian American VP elect ‘lifted’ anecdote told by civil rights icon.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has been accused of plagiarizing with Fox News suggesting she “apparently appropriated an anecdote first told by civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.” in an interview with Elle Magazine
In the Elle interview, published in October, at the height of the 2020 presidential election campaign, she recalled accompanying her parents to civil rights marches as a toddler in a stroller in the 1960s.
“Senator Kamala Harris started her life’s work young,” writer Ashley C. Ford led off the piece as reported by Fox News.
“She laughs from her gut, the way you would with family, as she remembers being wheeled through an Oakland, California, civil rights march in a stroller with no straps with her parents and her uncle. At some point, she fell from the stroller … and the adults, caught up in the rapture of protest, just kept on marching. By the time they noticed little Kamala was gone and doubled back, she was understandably upset.”
“My mother tells the story about how I’m fussing,” Harris told the magazine. “And she’s like, ‘Baby, what do you want? What do you need?’ And I just looked at her and I said, ‘Fweedom.’”
After the interview resurfaced Monday, Twitter user @EngelsFreddie and Andray Domise, contributing editor of the Canadian publication Maclean’s, noted that Harris’ story resembled one told by King in a 1965 interview published in Playboy, Fox News said.
“I will never forget a moment in Birmingham when a White policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother,” King said at the time.
“‘What do you want?’ the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked at him straight in the eye and answered, ‘Fee-dom.’ She couldn’t even pronounce it, but she knew. It was beautiful! Many times when I have been in sorely trying situations, the memory of that little one has come into my mind, and has buoyed me.”
“So it turns out Kamala Harris lifted her “Fweedom” story from a 1965 Playboy interview with Martin Luther King, by Alex Haley. Much thanks to @EngelsFreddie for spotting the similarity,” Domise wrote accusing Harris of “lifting” her story from King.
“Read this too-perfect Kamala Harris story,” former New York Times op-ed writer editor Bari Weiss was cited as tweeting. “Then click on this 1965 Alex Haley interview with MLK and search for the word ‘fee-dom,'”
“Plagiarizing an MLK interview seems like the kind of thing you’ll get caught on. Why do ppl do this to themselves,” Washington Examiner executive editor Seth Mandel asked as cited by Fox News.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are two plagiarizing frauds. Biden plagiarized during law school and from RFK, Hubert Humphrey, JFK, and he stole the family history of a British politician [Neil Kinnock],” GOP rapid response director Steve Guest was quoted as writing . “Now Kamala Harris plagiarized from MLK.”
“Guess we know why Biden chose his running mate. He saw a lot of his own plagiarism in her,” conservative commentator Stephen Miller quipped, according to Fox News.
The conservative TV news channel said Biden transition did not immediately respond to its request for comment.