Former South Carolina House of Representatives Democrat Bakari Sellers referred to Nikki Haley, an Indian American and Republican presidential candidate for 2024, as a “white governor from the deep south” during an interview on CNN this week.
After Haley took part in a CNN town hall to promote her campaign, Sellers, an attorney and political pundit for CNN, made the remark on a CNN panel. He spoke on Haley’s response to the 2015 Dylann Roof incident, which resulted in the deaths of nine African Americans.
According to Sellers, “But there also has got to be some recognition provided to a white governor coming from the deep south for being able to attend all nine funerals, since I observed the state of exhaustion on her face, being a leader throughout that time, and for being able draw people together.”
Nachama Solveikchik, the head of communications for Haley, tweeted:
“Did @Bakari_Sellers really just refer to Nikki Haley as a ‘white governor’? Such a joke.”
Sellers seemed to be corrected by panel moderator and CNN Anchor Kaitlin Collins, who said, “And furthermore she is the first woman who is African-American that will be running in this, I should mention.”
During the panel, Sellers subsequently acknowledged his error and said, “And I made a mistake before — I called her a white governor. She happens to be a governor of color, I should add.”
Why Sellers first referred to her as “white” is unclear.
Sellers is from the very same South Carolina county that she is from, according to his own remark, and is acquainted with her history.
In a press statement, Haley’s team attacked the CNN panel and Sellers for referring to Haley as a “white governor”:
“Did they watch the same Nikki Haley town hall as the rest of the country? Haley answered questions from Iowa voters and CNN presenter Jake Tapper for 90 minutes. On contentious topics including abortion, entitlement reform, government spending, her disagreements with Donald Trump, the Russian invasion in Ukraine, China, and removing the Confederate flag, she provided thoughtful responses.”
“What are the panelists’ opinions? They made an attempt to criticize Haley for not discussing their favored subjects—race and abortion—enough. Haley was also criticized by a panelist who called her a ‘white governor.'”
“In many town halls, only Nikki Haley has engaged with actual voters and answered their questions,” according to Soloveichik’s statement in the press release. “She has published conservative policy proposals on a variety of topics and spoke about several of those topics today. Voters like Nikki Haley because she won’t give in to lefty talking heads.”
CNN is gleefully participating in destroying itself.
Why does every single political person in this country have to be catagorized by the color of their skin????? What does it matter that Nikki Haley is the first African-American woman to run for POTUS? You don’t vote for ANYONE based on the color of their skin or what their heritage is! This lesson appears in Acts wherein Jesus blinds Paul to disprove the notion that a person’s inner qualities can be revealed by their physical characteristics. AFter all, in the dark there is no color at all.
In today’s world the ONLY thing that matters the MOST is the color of ones skin. A white person says something displeasing about someone of ANY other skin color and they’re slapped with the “RACIST” label.
Individuals of ANY OTHER skin color make the SAME REMARKS about whites, and “nothing is said.”
God help this country if voters put these same slime ball DemoncRATS back in power next election.
Those who forget or refuse to remember OUR history are bound to relive it!
this is where the D-rats have put us.
I agree, I’m tired of hearing about the first black.. the first female.. the first black female.. the first gay, the first transgender.. if people want to be treated equally, why are we making a thing out of their race or whatever.
What about those of us supposedly whites who have indian, mexican, even black in the woodpile of our heritage. I prefer the category of other even though I have blue eyes and brown hair. In the USA we are almost all products of integration and yet we still are suppose to say we are what we aren’t which is JUST white because our heritage is not just white. Oh well, can’t explain this to the haters, can we?
A person’s skin color in NOT a symbol of one’s own character. Only their actions and mannerisms are a true representation of their character. Just because a person’s skin is black doesn’t make them a ni**er, their actions and personality do. White people who have a bad character and participate in illegal activities can also be classified as a ni**er, only white. Any color of skin can have this classification. All people just need to learn to get along and disregard what the government has to say. The government is what is pitting people against each other. Stop believing what the government has to say. They’ve been lying to each and every one of us.