Sunny Hostin Gets Emotional Over Supreme Court Redistricting Ruling: ‘Have to Tell My Children That They Have Less Civil Rights’

The View’s Sunny Hostin grew emotional when discussing how the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on the Voting Rights Act will affect her family.

Whoopi Goldberg played a clip of ABC News senior political correspondent Rachel Scott breaking down the ruling.

“In a ruling that could reshape the future makeup of Congress, the Supreme Court limiting the use of race to determine how congressional districts are drawn, slicing away at the landmark Voting Rights Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 at the height of the Civil Rights movement,” Scott said.

“So, you know, this decision — we knew this was coming because they’ve been chipping away at this for a long time,” Goldberg said. “The courts said, you know, there’s no problem with race anymore.”

“I think it’s a huge step back. I mean the 1965 Voting rights Act was the most important piece of legislation in United States history,” Hostin said.

“People died for that,” Goldberg added.

“Yes, actually Justice [Elena] Kagan in her 48-page dissent said that it was the most important piece because it was ‘borne of the literal blood of Union soldiers and Civil Rights marchers,'” Hostin added.

“And it has been gutted. People are saying, ‘Well, it hasn’t really been gutted.’ It has been, and that is because the majority opinion was written by Samuel Alito, the same judge that wrote the decision that took away a lot of women’s rights,” Hostin said.

She continued:

What is most troubling to me and I think you’ll — you and I, Whoopi, have discussed this — Alito argued that the vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the south, indicating that racism no longer exists in this country. I can tell you as a Black woman that my father was born in 1949. He remembers segregated schools. He remembers segregated water fountains. He remember that he couldn’t — that he did not have full civil rights. an he told me when I turned 40 years old that I was the first person in his family to enjoy full civil rights, and he is still alive today, and I am still alive today, and I have been discriminated against. And now I have to tell my children that they have less civil rights than I did when I was born.

“That is disgusting, despicable, and I am devastated by this particular Supreme Court decision even though, Whoopi, we did know this was coming,” Hostin added.

Watch the clip above via The View on ABC.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!