Sheletta: Black names matter. So, say them right!

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Who can forget the first moment of the presidential debate?

The vice president walked boldly across the stage, outstretched her hand to her opponent and said, “Kamala Harris.”.

In introducing herself, she stated exactly how to pronounce her name.

But he didn’t appear to hear — or learn. Donald Trump has said that he “couldn’t care less” about saying Harris’ first name properly.

I’m guessing his repeated “Ka-MAH-la” and “Ka-MILL-ah” and even “Ka-ma-BLAH” utterances have given permission to others to do the same. At one point, the Washington Post created a chart identifying Republicans, including members of Congress and a governor, who have mispronounced Madame Vice President’s name. When called out on her error in an appearance on CNN, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) declared she would “say Kamala’s name any way that I want to.”

Before we start clutching our pearls and saying how not-so-Minnesota-Nice this is, let’s remember that we did the same damn thing not too long ago, right here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

To add insult to injury, we didn’t do it to adults, we did it to children. Nobody called it out or attempted to stop it.

Let my friend Faith Johnson Patterson give you a little history lesson in case you’ve forgotten. She remembers it all too well.

Johnson Patterson was the first African American woman to coach a high school team to the finals at the Minnesota girls’ state basketball tournament. She went on to win eight state championships — five at North High School and three at DeLaSalle High School.

She recalled numerous times over the course of her stellar 28-year career when radio commentators and game announcers mocked the names of her Minneapolis players — Black girls playing at the height of their athletic careers.

These girls had worked hard, trained religiously and defeated their opponents to get to the state championship game, only to be belittled by white male broadcasters and announcers who butchered their names, on purpose.

“Why would they do that? Did they not think about their actions and who they would hurt?” Johnson Patterson said. “A name is a representation of that person’s being. It relates to their identity. The message was to make the girls feel unworthy, small.”

Charles Hallman remembers, too. For 34 years, Hallman has covered sports for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, an African American newspaper based in Minneapolis. He recalled listening to a popular sports radio show hosted by a pair of middle-aged white men who laughed into their microphones while mocking the names of elite Black female players.

“It was a running bit for them; they read the rosters on the air every year at tournament time,” Hallman said. “I know these guys. They did it to be funny; they thought it was cute. I don’t think they ever got any backlash from it. We’re not all named Sam and George and Mary. We live in a rich cultural environment but there are still some 1950s backwards ideas about what a name should be.”

Johnson Patterson recalled writing “cheat sheets” with the phonetic pronunciation of some of her athletes to spare her girls the gut punch of hearing their names publicly mangled by the announcers who introduced them.

“It’s a put down. It’s a culture they are mocking and labeling and stereotyping,” said the three-time Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame basketball coach. “These players become like daughters to me. At that impressionable age, young women take the insults personally. It lessens their confidence and self-esteem. We need to call it out at every level.”

Johnson Patterson was at the top of her game, but her achievement and excellence didn’t prevent the humiliation that the trailblazing coach experienced on behalf of her players.

Now as Kamala Harris scales new heights for a woman of color, it’s happening all over again, and right to her face.

“Kamala” is a name with Indian roots, reflecting Harris’ mixed race heritage from her immigrant mother’s side. Carrying a name that can be intentionally mispronounced and “othered” is something many African Americans relate to.

Many parents-to-be choose traditional names that reflect their heritage and ancestry. But our ancestors had their original names stolen, replaced with names selected by those who enslaved them.

No wonder so many Black parents want something original.

My mother invented “Sheletta.” Growing up in Houston in an all-Black neighborhood and attending an all-Black school, my name was unremarkable. Lots of us carried names our families came up with.

The first time anyone mocked my name to make me feel inferior was when I joined the Houston Junior Symphony Orchestra. I was the only little Black girl in the violin section.

I now know that if it wouldn’t have been my name, it would have been my hair or the fact that I took a city bus to practices and performances.

As a college student planning a career in broadcasting, several professors advised me to shift to “Shelly” so I could get on the air.

They never said, “Because Sheletta sounds too Black and that will hold you back,” but they didn’t have to. When I got my first job at a television station in Lake Charles, La., my news director was a Black woman. She told me to be who I wanted to be. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to pull off being a very demure, very mindful Shelly, so I stuck with the name my mom gave me.

When my own children were born, we went conventional, choosing names our children could hide within. It was our instinct to protect them from the imagined bigoted hiring managers of the future. We wanted to make sure the resumes of Andrew, Brandon, Cameron and Daniel Brundidge wouldn’t be overlooked because of what we wrote on their birth certificates.

The politicians, pundits and commentators who seem to relish mispronouncing “Kamala” are showing us who they really are, and their deliberate disrespect publicly reveals them as ugly and ignorant.

Now that it’s no longer acceptable for racist white people to call a grown woman a “girl” or refer to an adult man as “boy,” are they mispronouncing our names to hold on to the one way they can still feel superior to people who don’t look like them?

Black names matter, so say them right or don’t say them at all.

Donald Trump owes Kamala Harris an apology.

And the white broadcasters and the listeners who laughed along when they ridiculed the names of Black girls who played their hearts out owe Coach Johnson Patterson and her teams an apology.

You know who you are, and I would call you out, but I don’t want to mispronounce your names.