‘He’s Not a Republican!’ Things Turn Tense on The View After Sunny Hostin Asks Guest Coleman Hughes About Being a ‘Pawn of the Right’
Things turned a bit tense on The View when Sunny Hostin asked guest Coleman Hughes about being a “pawn of the right,” only to immediately have a co-host push back on her.
Hughes joined The View on Wednesday to promote his book, The End of Race Politics, in which he argues for a “colorblind approach to politics and culture.” Hughes also hosts a podcast called Conversations and is an analyst for CNN.
Hostin first accused Hughes of having a premise that is “fundamentally flawed,” referencing multiple quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.
Hostin said:
I think the premise is fundamentally flawed. You claim that color-blindness was the goal of the civil rights movement based upon Dr. King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, you know, Content of color versus then color of skin. Bernice, Dr. King’s daughter, points out that four years after giving that speech actually, Dr. King also said this, “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for negroes.” He also said in 1968 it was about less than a week before he was assassinated, “This country never stops to realize that they owe a people kept in slavery for 244 years.” So rather than class, he did write about that earlier on right before his death, he made the argument for racial equality and racial reparations.
She continued by telling Hughes critics believe his “colorblindness” argument has been “co-opted by the right.”
“So your argument for color-blindness, I think, is something that the right has co-opted and so many in the Black community, if I’m being honest with you, because I want to be, believe that you are being used as a pawn by the right and that you’re a charlatan of sorts,” Hostin said.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, also a contributor at CNN, jumped in to inform Hostin that Hughes is not a Republican or conservative.
“He’s not a Republican!” she said.
“Who am I being used by?” a shocked Hughes asked Hostin.
“You’ve said that you’re a conservative,” Hostin said, eliciting more confusion from her guest.
“No,” Hughes said.
“You did. You actually said that on a podcast that you did two weeks ago,” Hostin replied.
“I said that I was a conservative?” Hughes asked.
“He’s not a conservative,” Griffin insisted.
Hughes first responded to Hostin’s Dr. King quotes, saying, “The quote that you just pointed out about doing something special for the Negro, that’s from the book Why We Can’t Wait that I just mentioned. A couple paragraphs later he lays out exactly what that something special was and it was the bill of rights for the disadvantaged, a broad class-based policy.”
“But he also says you must include race,” Hostin said, leading to back and forth until Hughes simply told the audience to read Why We Can’t Wait.
The commentator then denied being “co-opted” by anyone, calling the accusation an “ad hominem tactic” that was not based on evidence.
“I don’t think I’ve been co-opted by anyone. I’ve only voted twice, both for Democrats. Although, I’m an independent, I would vote for a Republican, probably a non-Trump Republican if they were compelling,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any evidence I’ve been co-opted by anyone and I think that that’s an ad hominem tactic that people use to not address really the important conversations we’re having here. I think it’s better and it would be better for everyone if we stuck to the topics rather than make it about me without any evidence that I’ve been co-opted.”
Watch above via ABC.
