Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley is finding herself on defense again after she said “I had Black friends growing up” during a town hall as she sought to clean up remarks she made aroun…
She went to Orangeburg Preparatory School, a private school that was formed by the merger of two private schools that were segregation academies. Ask her how many black classmates she had. If the answer isn't zero it was in the low single digits in a county that's 60% black.
The answer is zero. I went to a school like this on the west coast, the same graduating year. We did have a black foreign exchange student, at least one year. To be fair, Nikki's father taught at Voorheers college (a historically black institution), and her mom taught at a public school. Her mom started a boutique woman's clothing store that Nikki worked in.
Yeah, I went to a similar school very close to the one she went to. Knew people from there, had friends that transferred over from there, etc.
It certainly wasn't my choice to go there, and I don't think my parents reasoning was out of racism in sending me there so I'm not about to conclude the same for her. But it's just realistically thinking, how many black friends is she going to make going there? On top of recognizing the same horseshit whitewashing of history that got her into this whole defense. The same one I was taught originally as well.
I hate to say it, but you’re right. She’s handling this issue like it’s 2012 and Republicans still have to pretend not to be racist. Keeping the mask on is not doing her any favors in the primary.
In my experience anyone who is in a situation where they feel the have to say "I have black friends" has no black friends. Same with "I'm not racist", 100% that sentence calls you out as racist. Non racist people and people with a diverse friend group don't find themselves in situations where they have to say things like that.
She couldn't even manage to say "I have black friends." She had black friends growing up, which could mean she had a black friend in preschool and another one in first grade, if that is even true.
But she couldn't even lie about having a black friend now. I mean for fuck's sake, she's a Republican politician. Just get a Republican black lady from North Carolina from the 3 who exist and have her pretend to be Nikki's best friend. They couldn't even do that. Because apparently even that would be a step too far.
During a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, Haley was asked to respond to criticism made by fellow GOP White House candidate Chris Christie after the former U.N. ambassador initially omitted slavery in her answer about the cause of the Civil War. Christie claimed she had answered the way she did because she was “unwilling to offend anyone by telling truth.”
“What I will tell you is Chris Christie is from New Jersey." [She said.]
I'm sorry, wtf does New Jersey have to do with this?
While I agree about Christie, have you ever lived in New Jersey, outside of the immediate New York suburbs? Or do you just drive through on the turnpike and think you've seen it?
“Chris Christie is from New Jersey. He can describe the civil war accurately and not have every single one of his white in-state supporters desert him. I’m from South Carolina. I can’t.”
This is pretty cool, because she’s backing herself into a corner. Ordinarily Nimarata Randhawa could of course fall back on her Indian heritage, but she’s spent most of her life distancing herself from it .
Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley is finding herself on defense again after she said “I had Black friends growing up” during a town hall as she sought to clean up remarks she made around the cause of the Civil War.
During a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, Haley was asked to respond to criticism made by fellow GOP White House candidate Chris Christie after the former U.N. ambassador initially omitted slavery in her answer about the cause of the Civil War.
Haley’s response prompted jabs from fellow Republican White House hopeful Ron DeSantis’s campaign and criticism from pundits and political observers.
‘I had black friends growing up,’” the DeSantis War Room account on X, formerly Twitter, wrote, attaching a clip of her remarks at the CNN town hall.
During a joint interview with journalists from NBC News and The Des Moines Register on Friday, Haley defended her comments from the CNN town hall, saying she knew firsthand the pains of racism and that it was a “source of pride” to say she had Black and white friends.
The gaffes come at a critical moment for Haley, who has been seeing some momentum in New Hampshire polling, just a week out from the Iowa GOP caucus.
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