MSNBC host and former Kamala Harris spokesperson, Symone Sanders-Townsend, explained how she had a bad experience working for the Vice President.
“The thing about being the first is because you’re the first- whether you’re the first woman, first person of color, so on and so forth, folks just sometimes don’t know how to deal with you. They don’t know how to process it,” Sanders-Townsend said. “And so they resort to, unfortunately, sometimes racist, sexist tropes and memes and stereotypes.”
“It was new for me when I worked for her because I never worked for a high-profile woman before. I had only ever worked for men,” Sanders-Townsend continued.
“There was one day at work where I was like ‘Ma’am, you might be the last woman I work for because this is- it’s a lot that we got to deal with over in here.”
In April 2022, Harris’ Chief of Staff, Tina Flournoy, announced she was leaving her position in the Vice President’s office.
Flournoy had been with Harris since she formed her vice-presidential staff, and led the group through troubling times.
Most notably, Harris has drawn scrutiny for what some staffers called a “dysfunctional” or “hostile” work environment, which some believe has led to the constant turnover of staffers working for the VP.
Some estimations put the number of departures at an even dozen, making it a little less than once a month, on average, with at least three making the decision to leave in 2022 alone.
