Vanderbilt University professor Michael Eric Dyson said Thursday on MSNBCs “The ReidOut” that Republican Winsome Sears, who was elected lieutenant governor on Tuesday in Virginia, is a “black mouth moving” that is “speaking on behalf of a white supremacist legacy” of the GOP.
Host Joy Reid said, “What Republicans are now doing is they basically demand credit any time any of them ever voted for anybody black or if there’s a black guy on the Supreme Court that’s conservative. Any black conservative is supposedly or the black president having ever been elected, right? The fact that he was elected, period, means there’s no racism.”
Dyson said, “They want credit for having hair in the morning or getting up and brushing their teeth. ‘Look, I’ve made an achievement that should be noteworthy.’ No. You are doing what all political figures what must do, make choices. ”
He continued, “The problem is here they want — they want white supremacy by ventriloquist effect. There is a black mouth moving but a white idea through the — running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates the white supremacist practices. We know that we can internalize in our own minds, in our own subconscious, in our own bodies the very principles that are undoing us. So to have a black face speaking on behalf of a white supremacist legacy is nothing new. And it is to the chagrin of those of us who study race that the white folk on the other side and the right-wingers on the other side don’t understand.”
Dyson added, “If you tell black people, ‘Look, I support a negro. Look! There is a person of color that I am in favor of,’ and that person of color happens to undermine and undercut and subvert the very principles about which we are concerned. You do yourself no service by pointing to them as an example of your racial progressivism.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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