‘Racism Wrapped Up in Racism and Deep-Fried in Some More Racism’: CNN’s Van Jones and Alice Stewart Blast Tuberville’s ‘Fearmongering’
The Republican and Democratic commentators who are seemingly omnipresent tag teams on many cable news programs don’t often see eye to eye, but Van Jones and Alice Stewart were in sync Sunday to condemn comments made by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) about reparations.
At a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Nevada Saturday, Tuberville spoke about crime and brought up reparations:
Some people say, well, they’re soft on crime. No, they’re not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime, they want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! They are not owed that!
What Tuberville said “appears to be flat-out racism,” said CNN Newsroom anchor Pamela Brown.
“It’s just racism on top of racism, wrapped up in some racism and deep-fried with some more racism, with some racism powder on it,” said Jones.
“Everything he’s saying is unacceptable,” Jones continued. “For him to say that Democrats want crime because that’s a way for Black people to get reparations is for him to say that all the criminals are black…which is not true.”
He blasted Tuberville’s “fear mongering” for suggesting that reparations was about “taking stuff from some individual White people” and called his comments “really shocking,” especially in light of how the GOP was “willing to do back flips into the toilet to excuse Herschel Walker’s activity and then say nothing about this kind of thing.”
It was “really, really offensive,” Jones added. “If this is not racist, there’s nothing that’s racist…for him to conflate crime and reparations and say ‘they’re coming after you’ is completely beyond the pale.”
“Do you see it that same way, Alice?” Brown asked the Republican strategist.
“I agree with every word Van said, with regards to the unacceptable nature of this comment,” Stewart replied.
While there was a “surging crime problem in cities across the country,” and that was a “significant issue for voters,” Stewart noted, it was also an issue that “can speak for itself.”
“He basically was saying everyone who’s a criminal is black, right?” Brown said. “That’s unacceptable.”
“It’s certainly not how you talk about the crime situation in this country,” Stewart agreed. “I don’t agree with what he said and how he said it. The point is we do have a crime problem in this country. We just need to talk about the numbers and crime and how to fight reducing crime in this country — that is not the way that you do that.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
