Nikki Haley has run out of excuses for her widely mocked response to a question about what caused the Civil War. So the Republican presidential candidate is going for a tried and true method for avoiding accusations of racism, I have a Black friend!
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Except this time, she added a little extra seasoning.
While defending her original omission of slavery from the Civil War, the former South Carolina Governor candidate said, “I had Black friends growing up.”
“If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up, and you have, you know, I had Black friends growing up,” she said during a CNN Town hall. “It is a very talked-about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina, when it comes to, you know, slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War.”
Haley continued to dig a hole as she tried to backtrack from her earlier flop. “It was not just slavery that was talked about; it was more about racism that was talked about,” she said. “We had Black friends, we had white friends, but it was always a topic of conversation.”
Like many Black people, “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin wasn’t feeling Haley’s words at all.
“It’s tokenism to the extreme, and the fact that you are trying to convince me that you have Black friends just tells me you don’t,” said Hostin in response to Haley’s comments Friday morning on “The View.”
“It’s insulting,” said Hostin.
In 2024, you’d expect a candidate gunning for the most powerful political office in the world to do a little better than, I had a Black friend once upon a time. But you’ve almost got to respect the gumption.
Based on social media responses, it doesn’t look like this helped her win over Black folks. But with the Iowa Caucus only a few days away, we’ll have to wait and see if the Black friends thing works on voters.
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