Those of you who watched the unhinged and unfunny performance of Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the final night of the DNC probably caught the “clever” routine she delivered with Andrew Yang. The two of them took turns mispronouncing Vice President Mike Pence’s surname as some sort of takedown on the fact that he had previously mispronounced the first name of his opponent in the upcoming election, Senator Kamala Harris. While that got a few laughs from the liberal audience, some critics chose to read a lot more into the issue of Harris’ name, its origins, and how everyone is supposed to pronounce it.

The Associated Press is reporting that some Harris supporters are seeing this as more than a simple mistake or offensive humor. They’re seeing a vast conspiracy behind anyone who incorrectly pronounces the name and it’s all because of… (you guessed it) racism. Mispronouncers are attempting to paint Harris as some sort of “other” or foreign interloper taking American political jobs or something.

Harris’ first name is pronounced “KAH’-mah-lah” — or, as she explains in her biography, “‘comma-la,’ like the punctuation mark.” But mispronunciations have been rampant in the days since the California senator became the first Black woman and the first Asian American woman named to a major party’s ticket. Pence referred to her as “kah-MAH’-lah,” putting his emphasis on the second syllable, at events last week. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel did the same on Wednesday, as did Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, the day after Harris delivered a prime-time speech accepting the Democratic nomination — a speech he indicated he watched.

Harris’ supporters say the pattern amounts to a deliberate effort by Trump and his allies to portray Harris — the daughter of immigrants — as someone who does not belong at the top ranks of politics…

“It is an effort to diminish her,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund. ”It’s designed to signal difference.”

Let me just say upfront that I wasn’t sure how her name was pronounced until just this week. And I know for a fact that I’ve heard multiple cable news hosts earlier this year pronouncing it the way I had been, with the accent on the middle syllable. Unless you were raised in Indian culture, it’s not exactly obvious. Also, defaulting to placing the accent on the second-to last syllable of any word is fairly standard in English, particularly when you’re not familiar with the word. As noted in the article linked above, Harris describes in her biography that her first name means “lotus flower” in Indian.

So the correct pronunciation rhymes with “comma-lah.” Noted. I’ll be sure to pronounce it that way in the future. But let’s not pretend that Americans haven’t been butchering the pronunciation of politicians names for ages and it hasn’t let up much in recent years. I mispronounced John Kasich’s name for ages until I heard him say “Kasich rhymes with basic.” That helped me remember it. And don’t even get me started on Pete Buttigieg. Everyone in cable news was butchering that surname at first. The guy even had to put a giant sign on the wall of his office to help people puzzle it out. And those are two White, male politicians in America.

When we get into foreign politics it’s even worse. Let’s have a show of hands here for a moment. How many of you originally pronounced German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first name the same way you’d pronounce Angela Lansbury’s? I know I did until I heard someone explain that it’s pronounced “angle-luh.” And I’d be willing to bet that there are still plenty of you who don’t know how to pronounce the name of Turkish tyrant Recep Tayyip Erdogan, despite his constant presence in the news. For those who haven’t sat through the lesson plan, the “c” in Turkish is pronounced like a “j.” And the “g” is pronounced like a “w.” So his name is actually pronounced “Ray-Jep Tie-Yip Air-Doe-Wan.” But I assume that all of us who got those names wrong were racists too, right?

Senator Harris’ supporters should probably spend more time worrying about their candidate’s inconsistent and troubling history as Attorney General of California and her pitiful stump performances and lack of support in the primary. That’s likely going to be far more important than the number of people who grew up in the United States without the benefit of knowing how to pronounce “lotus flower” in Indian.