A politician in the United Kingdom has generated a substantial amount of criticism after referring to the new U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as “the Indian” two days following the 2020 Election.
In a now-deleted tweet, Lord Kilclooney of the House of Lords tweeted, “What happens if Biden moves on and the Indian becomes President. Who then becomes Vice President?”
His tweet comes after Harris became the first woman, first Black American, and the first Black South Asian American Vice President-elect in U.S. history.
After learning of his tweet, Lord Fowler, lord speaker of the House of Lords, ordered Kilclooney to apologize for his comment.
“Lord Kilclooney should retract and apologize,” he wrote on Twitter. “This is an offensive way to refer to anyone, let alone a woman who has just made history.”
“The comment is entirely unacceptable and has no place in British politics. I could not be clearer,” he continued.
Since being met with criticism, Kilclooney has taken to Twitter to deny claims that his tweet was racist and has yet to apologize for what he tweeted.
“Harris is rightly proud of her Indian background I certainly withdraw my reference to her as an Indian as it seems to have upset some people,” he wrote. “I did not know her name and identified her with the term Indian.”
