The Hypocrisy Of Nikki Haley
During an interview with Brian Kilmeade, (host of Fox and Friends), former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley declared “We're not a racist country”, when talking about the United States. After receiving tons of backlash, her political spokesperson made it clear. “She meant what she said: America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country. The liberal media fails to get that distinction. It can throw a fit, but that doesn't change Nikki's belief that America is special because its people are always striving to do better, and we live up to our founding ideals of freedom and equality.”
In other words, America isn't racist. It's only the people who decided it was okay to enslave others based on their skin color. Not to mention, the passing and (sometimes violent) enforcement of laws that kept anyone that wasn't a white male as a distant third-class citizen. Those are just the laws. It doesn't include the massive number of beatings, murders, lynchings by law enforcement officials, and any other white man that wanted to join in the fun.
This kind of clueless statement from a Republican is nothing new but coming from Nikki Haley had reeks of hypocrisy. Nimarata Nikki Randhawa (Nikki Hayley’s birth name) is the daughter of Indian immigrants who came to the United States via Canada in 1969. Nikki detailed in her memoirs the racism she and her family had to face growing up in the country. That isn't racist. Nikki would say that “...when it came time for my parents to find a home, no one would rent to them, Word quickly spread that my father worked at a black school, And besides that, he and my mom were obviously foreigners themselves. When they finally found a house, they had to buy it, not rent it, and there were told conditions: They couldn't entertain black people in it. They couldn't have alcohol in it. And they had to sell it back to the man they had bought it from.”
I was shocked to read this. Nikki Haley is telling me that immigrants experience racism in South Carolina. I thought America wasn't a racist country. Nikki's autobiography. Can’t Is Not An Option: My American Story is supposed to be a story of perseverance against racism to become governor of South Carolina. Ironically, she joined the party that promoted the racism that she had to overcome. She would then go on to serve the man who is arguably the most corrupt president in U.S. history.
When asked by CNN town hall host, John Tapper, to explain her outrageous statement noting that slavery is enshrined in our Constitution, Haley responded “Our Founding Fathers had the best intentions when they started, and we fixed it along the way, and we should always look at it that way.” Hayley also pointed to the phrase “all men are created equal,” in the Declaration of Independence as proof that America isn’t racist, even though a lot of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders, including Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the phrase. Actions speak louder than words. For the millions of people who had to endure the atrocities of American racism, The Declaration of Independence meant absolutely nothing.
Despite being Republican and a former Trump bootlicker, Haley is experiencing racism from Donald Trump himself. Trump has referred to Halley's “Nembra,” which is a play on her birth name. Trump then used the birther claims that he used on Barack Obama. Trump also claimed that Nikki Haley isn't even eligible to run for president in the United States. He has mocked her intelligence, calling her a bird brain. It's always satisfying to see Trump turn on the people who shamelessly sucked up to him thinking he would be different.
So, this is what Nikki Haley wants us to believe:
-Despite the constitution counting Black people as Three-Fifths of a person, and the passing of the Fugitive Slave Laws, The Indian People Act of 1830, The Greaser Act of 1855, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Jim Crow Laws, The Indian termination policy, The Japanese Internment Act of 1942, operation WET back in 1954, Poll taxes, And many other racist policies
-Despite Nikki Haley writing a book about the racism she overcame.
-Despite changing her name, as a lot of immigrants have to avoid. Prejudice and discrimination.
-Despite her home state seceding along with twelve other states to fight a bloody war so they could keep slavery.
-Despite continuous systemic racism and law enforcement.
-It was all just a big misunderstanding
While it's true that things have gotten a lot better in the last 40 years, given the United States history, we really had nowhere to go but up. Vladimir Putin isn't as bad as Joseph Stalin, but he's still a brutal dictator, (who happens to be supported by Donald Trump.). Nikki Haley parrots the Republican talking point that we shouldn't focus on racism because it's discouraging. She doesn't even want slavery or Jim Crow to be taught in school. While it's true that Americans have more opportunities than most people in the world, racism is a huge part of American history, not just some mistake. History is about what happened, not what we wish happened. It’s important to teach American kids of all colors that they can succeed. We also must tell the truth, or nothing will change.
Students who live in red states are vulnerable to the right-wing agenda. Republicans won't be happy until creationism and forced prayer in school are back. If we're not careful, students will be taught that God wrote the Constitution and history books will be replaced with endless showings of John Wayne movies and The Patriot. Outrageous statements like Nikki Haley's are all too common in the Republican Party. I guess that's to be expected when their leading presidential candidate is doing a felony trial tour around the country as they refer to themselves as the law and order party…