In a televised campaign event, South Carolina American Senator Lindsay Graham said African Americans and immigrants can go “anywhere” in their home state, but they only need to be Rs.
Graham made the remarks in a televised “conversation” with his political rival, former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison, the first African American to serve in the role.
He made the remarks in reference to his political career and said Harrison would lose because he is a Democrat, not because he is black.
“Do I believe our cop is systematically racist? No. Do I believe South Carolina is a racist state? No. Let me tell you why. To the youth there, the young people of color, the young immigrants, this is a great state, but one thing I can say without a doubt, you can be African American and go to the Senate, but you just have to share our values. ”
He added: “If you are young, African American or immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you need to be conservative, not radical.”
The remarks were made in response to a question about civil unrest, and as the U.S. counts a long history of racism and its ongoing police brutality, carried out by a white Minneapolis police officer following the murder of black man George Floyd.
South Carolina was a federal state during the Civil War, and later institutionalized racism during the Jim Crow era, which applied second-class status to African Americans.
Graham, a longtime senator, is tied with Harrison in a very competitive race.
The conversation was originally made as a discussion, but was changed at the last minute because, despite a major outbreak in the Trump White House that infected two of Graham’s Republican Senate colleagues, Graham refused to take the Covid-19 exam.
That speculation and Graham’s comment – which sparked a f-line outrage – prompted Democratic congressman Eric Svelwell To tweet: “Does this fever talk, or steroids?”
Charlie Sykes, editor of Bullwork, was Even more dull, Saying: “Lindsay, 1954 recalls his point of speaking.”
