Did Kamala Harris tell a group she was "a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit" for no reason during the normal course of starting a meeting? No, that's not true: Harris was describing herself and what she was wearing, which is considered good manners during a meeting with blind or visually impaired persons. She was speaking at a meeting on the anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and other speakers at the same event also described themselves to the group.
The claim appeared in a post and video published on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 26, 2024 (archived here). It opened:
VP: "I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit."
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Mon July 22 16:03:12 2024 UTC)
Harris spoke at a meeting held to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus on July 26, 2022. According to the official transcript from the White House (archived here), she said:
I am Kamala Harris. My pronouns are 'she' and 'her,' and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.
Harris was doing a visual self-description, a common practice for people speaking to low-vision listeners, as 19th News reported at the time (archived here) with quotes from Jasmin Bailey, who was the manager of business operations for the American Association of People with Disabilities at the time the article was published:
The American Association of People with Disabilities was one of the organizations present at the meeting with Harris. Although Bailey herself was not in the room, she praised Harris for engaging in visual self-description.
'[Using visual self-description] demonstrates [Harris] was thinking about the inclusion of all people. I applaud Vice President Harris for being a leader and for ensuring she was able to engage all people attending the meeting,' Bailey said.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Kamala Harris can be found here.
