‘A Black Mouth Moving’ That ‘Justifies and Legitimates’ White Supremacy: MSNBC Guest Says Winsome Sears Win Doesn’t Make GOP Racially Progressive
When she was elected lieutenant governor on Tuesday, Republican Winsome Sears became the first Black woman to be elected to statewide office in Virginia.
Her victory has been touted by some conservatives as evidence that racism is not a factor in the Virginia elections, which saw Republicans take the governorship and the House of Delegates.
On Thursday night, Joy Reid said Virginia’s Republican voters shouldn’t get credit for electing a person of color because her opponent is also a person of color. Democrat Hala Ayala is a Latina with African roots and is also part Lebanese .
“What Republicans are now doing is they basically demand credit any time any of them ever voted for anybody Black or if there’s a Black guy on the Supreme Court that’s conservative,” said Reid. “Any Black conservative is supposedly or the Black president having ever been elected, right? The fact that he was elected, period, means there’s no racism.”
She continued, “The two choices voters had in Virginia were a Black woman who shares my daughter’s name and Jamaican heritage, and an Afro-Latina who is part Lebanese. So you had a choice of two Brown/Black people and you picked one of them. Do you get credit? Do you get special credit? It’s like I had ice cream or cake adds two options, but I want credit for lowering my calorie count because I picked ice cream. You had two choices and they were both Black!”
Dyson agreed with Reid’s assessment:
They want credit for having hair in the morning or getting up and brushing their teeth. ‘Look, I’ve made an achievement that should be noteworthy.’ No. You are doing what all political figures what must do: make choices. The problem is here they want — they want White supremacy by ventriloquist effect. There is a Black mouth moving but a White idea through the — running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates the White supremacist practices. We know that we can internalize in our own minds, in our own subconscious, in our own bodies the very principles that are undoing us. So to have a Black face speaking in behalf of a White supremacist legacy is nothing new. And it is to the chagrin of those of us who study race that the White folk on the other side and the right wingers the other side don’t understand.
He added, “If you tell Black people, ‘Look, I support a Negro. Look! There is a person of color that I am in favor of,’ and that person of color happens to undermine and undercut and subvert the very principles about which we are concerned, you do yourself no service by pointing to them as an example of your racial progressivism.”
Correction: This article had erroneously stated that Winsome Sears was the first Black person elected to statewide office in Virginia.
Watch above via MSNBC.
