Ayanna Pressley says Loomer's remarks are part of "a coordinated, unrelenting, and layered campaign against black people"
Ayanna PressleyUnited States Representative for Massachusetts's 7th district and one of the women named in the remarks
Representative Ayanna Pressley, one of the five Black women Laura Loomer described using the word "ghetto" and a gendered slur, responded by opening with Queen Latifah's line "who you calling a b****?" She said she had not intended to respond but would not accept the disrespect, invoked her daughter and her mother, and said the matter was larger than the women named, describing it as part of a coordinated campaign against Black people, Black families and Black women. She linked it to the end of Roe and rising maternal mortality among Black women, the removal of Black women from the federal workforce, the dismantling of diversity programmes, and Justice Department action against Lisa Cook and Letitia James.
“I wasn't gonna enter the chat to respond to an ignorant and desperate woman who yesterday referred to myself and several of my sister Congresswomen as ghetto black b****. I'm not raising my daughter Cora to accept that kind of disrespect.”
Original video
Where this statement fits
Laura Loomer’s remarks about Angie Nixon and other Black women in politics
Laura Loomer described Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon and four other prominent Black women using the word “ghetto” and a gendered slur, said the stereotype exists, and later defended the wording as an accurate description of Nixon’s conduct, race, and ideology. Nixon and political figures and commentators across party lines called the remarks racist, sexist, degrading, offensive, or vile. The dispute concerns whether Loomer’s stated political criticism can be separated from the racial and gender stereotypes used in the original and follow-up statements.
Source and context
Original video
About this source
The quoted wording is our transcription of the video audio. The segment carries three voices: Loomer's original remarks, Pressley's response, and a third speaker who refers to Pressley in the third person and is therefore not her. Only passages in which the speaker refers to herself, her daughter Cora and her "sister Congresswomen" are attributed to Pressley here; the third speaker is not identified and nothing is attributed to them.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Loomer described Angie Nixon, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson using the word "ghetto" and a gendered slur on August 28, and said on August 25 that the stereotype exists. Nixon and figures across party lines had already responded.
After the quotation
Loomer refused to apologise on September 4 and repeated her defence to Stephen A. Smith on September 3. Pressley separately condemned Rula Jebreal's description of Hakeem Jeffries in the same period, which we record as a separate dispute.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Pressley rejects the remarks outright as disrespect she will not accept and places them within a broader pattern of racist action, which condemns the conduct under scrutiny. The closest competing label is “Challenged the characterization”, because part of her answer disputes Loomer's claim that the wording describes a real stereotype rather than a racist attack. That loses because she does not argue about the accuracy of the description; she rejects the remarks themselves and the campaign she says they belong to.
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- People and groups discussed
- Laura Loomer
More from this case
Read the full caseLoomer renews the language she used to criticize Nixon
“Twerking with drag queens is not only ghetto, but it's also beneath anyone running to become a US Senator.”Read statement
Joanna McClinton calls on Trump to condemn Loomer's remarks
“We need the president to condemn these comments... Unfortunately, attacking Black women is nothing new... We have been fighting with racism and misogyny for as long as we have been a democratic republic.”Read statement
Laura Loomer repeats “ghetto behavior” characterization in X reply
“THIS IS GHETTO BEHAVIOR!”Read statement
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- Ayanna Pressley says Loomer's remarks are part of "a coordinated, unrelenting, and layered campaign against black people"
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The Dispute Index. "Ayanna Pressley says Loomer's remarks are part of "a coordinated, unrelenting, and layered campaign against black people"". First published: 2026-09-18. Last updated: 2026-09-26. https://disputeindex.com/events/1081-representative-ayanna-pressley-one-of-the-five-black