Newt Gingrich, the villainous toad in the Disney movie of my nightmares, just said that white people don’t know what it’s like to be a black American and I am so destabilized that I can no longer be certain that my life isn’t a prolonged episode of the Truman show.
“It took me a long time, and a number of people talking to me through the years to get a sense of this,” Gingrich said on a Facebook Live broadcast. “If you are a normal, white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively underestimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.”
Setting aside the obviously disquieting use of the word “normal,” this is insane behavior for Newt! I didn’t even know that the Republican platform allowed the recognition of discrimination anymore, and here Newt is, Donald Trump’s potential running mate, showing a tiny glimpse of his own humanity.
(On a Fox News appearance following the Dallas shooting, Gingrich later recommended that Obama attempt to unite the country by saying, “Black lives matter; Blue lives matter; all lives matter.”)
The former House speaker has an extensive history of bigotry, which most recently includes scheming with Trump about his now-infamous Frozen tweet, meant to justify the use of six-sided stars.
In 2010, Gingrich told the National Review that Obama was engaging in “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” One year before that, he tweeted that Sonia Sotomayor’s insistence that she had unique experience as a Latina woman was racist.
“Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman’ [sic] new racism is no better than old racism,” he tweeted, according to Media Matters. “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”
Perhaps the startlingly understanding statement was the result of a Trump campaign push to be slightly less inflammatory—on Friday, the presidential turd put out a statement lamenting the “senseless, tragic deaths of two motorists in Louisiana and Minnesota.” Although it is unclear why he referred to Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile as “motorists,” instead of black men.
Or, the language could be an unexpected new Republican talking point. Just hours later, tired boy Marco Rubio also put out a statement using nearly identical language:
“Those of us that are not African American will never fully understand the experience of being black in American [sic]… The fact is that there are communities in America where black families tell us that they are fearful of interacting with local law enforcement. How they feel is a reality that we cannot and should not ignore.”
I am just… confused.
Image via Getty.
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