MSNBC'S COLORING HALEY
Guest’s racist claim: ‘Brown skin’ hides ‘supremacist’
A guest on MSNBC launched a racially charged attack against former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday night, accusing the Republican presidential candidate of hiding white racism behind her skin color.
“She uses her brown skin . . . to launder white supremacist talking points,” Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali said on “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
Haley, 51, also a former South Carolina governor whose parents were immigrants from India, announced her bid last week.
Ali, a Pakistani American and author of “Go Back To Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American” argued that Haley’s parents benefited from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which was strongly supported by civil-rights activists.
“Her father came here because he was a professor, he taught at a historically black college in South Carolina. That’s how she became the proud American that she is,” said Ali.
“Yet, what does she do, like all these model minorities — which by the way, is the strategy of white supremacy, to use Asians in particular as a cudgel against black folks? Instead of pulling us up from the bootstraps, we’re told to take our boot and put it on the neck of poor immigrants, refugees, and black folks,” he said.
Haley made note of her Indian heritage in the video announcing her candidacy and described growing up in a racially segregated town.
“My mom would always say, ‘Your job is not to focus on the differences but the similarities.’ My parents reminded me and my siblings every day how blessed we were to live in America,” she said.
2nd attack
The attack comes only days after “CNN This Morning” co-host Don Lemon sparked an uproar by claiming Haley was not “in her prime.”
“If you Google when is a woman in her prime, it’ll say 20s, 30s and 40s,” Lemon, 56, said Thursday.
National Review contributing writer Pradheep J. Shanker called Ali “a bigot who opposes anyone with darker skin having political positions different than his own.”
Ali doubled down on Twitter Monday.
“I’m apparently racist. Just a ton of outrage today from them,” he wrote. “But not a peep about Ann Coulter telling her [Haley] to ‘go back’ to her country last week. So odd. Can’t qwhite [sic] put my finger on it.”
The Haley campaign did not respond to requests for comment.