Dem Rep Richmond: There Is a ‘Perpetuation of Discrimination in the White House’

Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” while discussing White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ statement on Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) not joining President Donald Trump at the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) said he didn’t “worry about their ignorance of the civil rights movement.”

Instead, he called out the “perpetuation of discrimination.”

Richmond said, “This White House, time and time again, needs education. If you go back to Black History Month, they fought Frederick Douglas was still alive. They also thought that historically black colleges and universities were founded on the basis of school choice, not because of segregation. And for this White House to lecture John Lewis and Bennie Thompson about the sacrifice of the people that are in the museum when it’s very well that John Lewis and Bennie Thompson are in the museum shows a level of ignorance on the civil rights movement that’s unfounded. Also whenever the president finds himself engulfed in an opportunity on Russia with new revelations, he always pivots towards race. He very well knows the sacrifice of the Congressional Black Caucus and our members in terms of making this country a more perfect union. I, as chair of the black caucus, I as a younger member as someone who has benefited from the sacrifices of John Lewis getting beaten to a bloody pulp within inches of death will always stand with him and Representative Thompson from Mississippi as they comment on what’s appropriate and not appropriate. And if you look at President Trump’s policies, it’s very clear that this administration has a lot more to do on the issue of civil rights, discrimination, injustice and uplifting the minority community.”

He added, “If you look at that march across the bridge and when the state troopers beat John Lewis who was marching for access to the ballot box so people like me would have the opportunity to get elected, but so that African-Americans can participate in the most important component of democracy, and that’s the right to vote. And we all know what happened on that Sunday. But what I would really urge the White House to do is to explain how you nominate 59 federal judges, and only one is an African-American. How you nominated over almost 40 U.S. Attorneys and only one is African-American? So I don’t worry about their ignorance of the civil rights movement as I do their perpetuation of discrimination in the White House now, whether it’s equating white supremacists with peaceful protesters who protest racial injustice, or looking at the discrimination and nomination and hiring process within this White House. Those are real things that we look at and affect our community.”

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