Nikki Haley says America has "never been a racist country"
Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox News’ Fox and Friends, asked Nikki Haley whether she thinks the GOP is a “racist party.” The GOP presidential candidate decided to answer the question by expanding its scope.
“No. We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country.”
She then stated her aims.
“Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No. But our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect every day that we can.”
She finished by reminiscing about her youth as “a brown girl that grew up in a small rural town in South Carolina.”
“I know, I faced racism when I was growing up. But I can tell you, today is a lot better than it was then. Our goal is to lift up everybody, not go and divide people on race or gender or party or anything else. We’ve had enough of that in America.”
Adding: “I don’t want my kids growing up where they’re sitting there thinking that they’re disadvantaged because of a color or a gender. I want them to know that if they work hard, they can do and be anything they want to be in America.”
I assume by “our goal,” she means the GOP’s goal. As such, everything that she says about Republicans can be dismissed as electoral hot air, signifying nothing. Everyone expects the Republicans to pretend to be something they are not. In addition, no minority right-winger can keep the conservative faith unless they blind themselves to the GOP’s enthusiastic and fundamental racism. So be it.
It is her claim that America is not, and has not been, a racist country that is the jaw-dropper.
Haley does not need to look beyond her backyard for evidence that racism was not just a feature of life in the US but, according to South Carolina, among others, was a baked-in state’s right. On December 20th, 1860, Haley’s home state declared its independence from the United States in their version of The Declaration of Independence, the so-called “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.”
In it, the authors mention ‘slaves’/’slavery’/’slaveholding’ 18 times — not once to condemn the practice of treating Blacks as chattel.
It did not take long for South Carolinians to back up their racism with action. On April 12th, 1861, the state’s militia attacked a United States garrison in Fort Sumter — sparking a war to defend racism in the South. A war the racists lost. But that bloody failure did not put an end to racism in America.
In the ensuing century, South Carolinians and the rest of their teammates institutionalized racism with Jim Crow laws and civic organizations, e.g. the Ku Klux Klan, dedicated to preserving racism. In fairness, many Northern conservatives subscribed to racism with equal vigor. Archie Bunker was one notable example.
A reporter interested in the truth — i.e. someone not from Fox — would have followed their question about racism with another asking Haley why, if racism was not a feature of American life, was it necessary to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965? And further, if there were no racism, why did anyone vote against these Acts? They might also have asked Haley what Martin Luther King was marching for — or what his dream was.
Haley, like every conservative, has a superpower — the unlimited ability to make things up. But, unlike her white peers, how can she have grown up as a brown girl who suffered racism (her words) and, in the same interview, declare that America has never been racist? I guess her superpower comes with an extra — the ability to lie to herself.