Alabama native and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who tends to stay above the fray of politics, on Thursday vented on Fox News about Democrats’ tendency to play racial politics, rather than focusing on policy differences.
“The idea that you would play such a card and try fear mongering among minorities just because you disagree with Republicans, that they are somehow all racists, I find it appalling. I find it insulting,” she said.
Rice’s comments come just days after a liberal Alabama group disseminated a mailer to black households warning them that if they did not vote, the state would be controlled by “extremists” who would take away their “right to speak,” continuously conduct drug raids “only in the Black community,” and “honor klansmen,” among other things.
A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee also took to Twitter on Thursday to criticize the NAACP for not congratulating Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Congresswoman-elect Mia Love (R-UT) for breaking racial barriers, while they did congratulate Democratic candidates who won on Tuesday. Scott became the first black senator from the South since reconstruction, and Love become the first black female Republican elected to the House.
can we take a moment to understand how the @NAACP didnt congratulate the first black person ever elected to both the House and Senate?
— Raffi Williams (@Raffiwilliams) November 6, 2014
it is unacceptable for an org that supposedly supports all blacks @NAACP to only acknowledge Dem blacks
— Raffi Williams (@Raffiwilliams) November 6, 2014
.@NAACP is failing the black community by only supporting Dems
— Raffi Williams (@Raffiwilliams) November 6, 2014
But the incident Rice specifically mentioned on Thursday was the Georgia Democratic Party’s decision to send out flyers urging blacks to vote for their candidates to prevent another shooting similar to what happened in Ferguson, Mo.
“We are not race blind. Of course we still have racial tensions in this country,” she conceded. “But the United States of America has made enormous progress in race relations and it is still the best place on Earth to be a minority. And as a Republican black woman from the South, I would say to them, ‘Really? Is that really the argument that you’re going to make in 2014?”
“Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade then played audio of Sen. Tim Scott bemoaning the fact that he was told growing up that he was not “black enough,” and asked Rice for her response.
“Does it mean that you’re not acting black if you speak well and you’re interested in progress? What are we doing to our kids when we tell them that our ethnic identity has to make them unsuccessful?” She asked rhetorically. “That, to me, is really a racist thing to say. I’ve been asked many times myself and I say, ‘Look, I’ve been black all my life, you don’t have to tell me how to be black.’ To my mind, the great thing about the United States of America is that you can be of any color, any ethnic group, any nationality, any religion, and you can have dreams and aspirations that are your own and then you can pursue them. That’s what this country is about.”
(Rice’s full interview can be viewed below. If you’re on a mobile device and it does not show up, click here)
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