Nikki Haley is an embarrassment to the state of South Carolina. This morning she had the gumption to tweet:
“I have struggled w/ what happened in Pitts bc it’s so similar to what happened in Chas. The country was very racially divided @ the time. We didn’t once blame Pres. Obama. We focused solely on the lives lost & their families. Have some respect for these families & stop the blame.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s dive right in. First of all, no one from South Carolina has ever abbreviated Charleston as “Chas.”
Dylann Roof was motivated by a hate movement that used President Obama being President as material to help take their hateful rhetoric into the mainstream. He is a member of the marginalized group Roof targeted so blaming President Obama would have been pretty stupid. And now that she’s done it, we know for sure how dumb it sounds. Thanks Nikki!
Trump knowingly stokes racial tensions. He uses racist dog whistles to invigorate white supremacists. His administration has been in charge of some of the nastiest, most racist policies America has seen since we put the Japanese in internment camps and systemically denied African Americans the right to vote.
Nikki Haley knows this. We also know she knows it because she is quoted in a 2016 article as saying so. Nikki Haley has made her bed. She refuses to acknowledge how anti Semitism caused to the deaths of 11 people in their place of worship this weekend. She said nothing as the administration she works for tried to ban Muslims, kept children in cages, and turned a blind eye to the rise of white supremacy. I would say I hope she’s ashamed of herself but let’s be real, she clearly never had any sense of decency or shame to begin with.