CNN Panel Slams Trump for Attacking Spike Lee: He Doesn’t See ‘Black People as Fully Human’

During a late night panel on CNN Monday night, Kierna Mayo said that she doesn’t think President Donald Trump sees black people as “fully human.”

Mayo is the former editor-in-chief of Ebony Magazine. She joined CNN’s Don Lemon and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to talk about Trump’s early morning slam on Spike Lee.

It was in the context of that conversation, that she made the remark.

Here is what Trump wrote on the morning after the Oscars:

Responding to the tweet, Mayo started off by saying that she thought Lee was actually “tucking it in” and muted in his response in his award speech.

Turning to Trump’s response to Lee, Mayo continued on: “This is a president who knows he’s on the wrong side of history. So you’ve hit the dog. In other words, he’s barking because he knows that he exemplifies all that Spike and his courageous film are really standing against.”

Then at one point during the panel, Lemon asked if Trump really “believes he’s somehow solved racism and this is the best time ever for African-Americans.”

Responding to Lemon, Mayo said this:

“I don’t even think he really — this may be out there. But I don’t really think the president sees black people as fully human. I don’t think he sees us as having agency, intelligence, as noted by his comment about  Spike, you know he wishes he could read. There’s always some subtle suggestion that black people need to catch up, keep up, and if it were not for his graciousness, if it were not for his attentiveness, his loving kindness, we would be in a hell of a place.”

She then stressed most African-Americans are actually offended by Trump’s language and are left feeling “this is a person who actively hates me.”

Mayo concluded by saying Trump was racist.

Watch above, via CNN

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