On Saturday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) responded to Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who had called her a member of “the modern KKK,” by calling Ramaswamy’s comment “backwards and harmful.”

We don’t normally partake in such malicious attacks, but yesterday, someone crossed a red line. Pressley’s campaign staff alleged in a fundraising drive that a Republican candidate called Ayanna “a modern grand wizard of the KKK” for speaking out against racial injustice. “The point is that this is counterproductive and harmful.”

Pressley, a progressive who was elected to the House in 2018, is the first Black woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress and the first woman of colour to serve on the Boston City Council.

“There is nothing more racist than assuming the colour of someone’s skin dictates something about the content of their viewpoints,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesman for Ramaswamy’s campaign, told HEADLINESFOREVER. The fact that she’s now attempting to capitalise on it is quite astounding.

During a campaign appearance in Iowa on Friday, Ramaswamy made this remark as an addendum to his thesis that progressives are racist when they criticise people of colour for not appropriately supporting racial fairness.

When NBC News reported that he was questioned if he feared being accused of backing white supremacy, he reportedly quoted Pressley as saying that she did not want any more Black people who did not want to be a Black voice. Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” which has been criticised by conservatives for promoting critical race theory, was then used by him as an example of the type of thinking he was attacking.

“These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK,” Ramaswamy reportedly told NBC.