Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Flo.) is swatting down the idea of systemic racism.
“Well, it’s a bunch of horse manure. I mean, give me a break,” DeSantis said during a Fox News town hall when asked to comment on the idea that the U.S. is a “systemically racist country.”
He continued:
“This country has had more opportunity for more people than any country in the history of the world and it doesn’t matter where you trace your ancestry from. We’ve had people that have been able to succeed and all and here’s the problem with things like critical race theory that they’re peddling. They’re basically saying all our institutions are bankrupt, and they’re, they’re illegitimate.”
“How do you have a society if everything in your society is illegitimate?” DeSantis asked.
See DeSantis’ comments below:
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) calls the idea of systemic racism "a bunch of horse manure.”
— The Recount (@therecount) April 30, 2021
“Give me a break … It’s a very harmful ideology, and I would say really a race-based version of a Marxist-type ideology.” pic.twitter.com/xcTuLmZtoE
Joe Walsh, who was running in the 2020 Republican primary, tweeted in response to the Florida governor, “DeSantis is wrong.”
“When I tell my conservative talk radio audience that I think there is STILL systemic racism, EVERY Republican voter disagrees with me,” he added. “Every one.”
DeSantis is wrong. But understand, this is the answer you MUST give if you’re a Republican running for office. When I tell my conservative talk radio audience that I think there is STILL systemic racism, EVERY Republican voter disagrees with me. Every one. https://t.co/qJ0hdOyslk
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) April 30, 2021
President Joe Biden weighed in on Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) GOP rebuttal of his address to Congress. Scott said, “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country.”
The president told NBC’s Craig Melvin, “No, I don’t think the American people are racist,” in an interview that aired on Friday morning.
“But I think after 400 years, African-Americans have been left in a position where they are so far behind the eight-ball in terms of education, health, in terms of opportunity,” he added.
Biden continued, “I don’t think America’s racist, but I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow and before that, slavery, has had a cost, and we have to deal with it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also reacted to Scott’s remarks, saying on “Good Morning America” Thursday morning, “First of all, no I don’t think America is a racist country. But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”
“These are issues that we must confront,” she also said. “It does not help to heal our country, to unify us as a people to ignore the realities of that.”