Mike Huckabee tried to get out of the “little issue” of the Confederate flag by comparing the responses in Ferguson and Charleston.
2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appeared on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday morning and was immediately asked to weigh in on the issue of the Confederate flag. After a racist, white supremacist terrorist shot and killed nine Black parishioners, there have been nationwide calls for the State of South Carolina to take down the flag that flies over the State House, which many see as a symbol of Black oppression.
Huckabee tried to sidestep the entire issue, saying, “it’s not an issue for a person running for president,” but had no trouble lauding his actions as a Southern Baptist minister and Arkansas governor in trying to make his points.
He also called the issue of whether or not it’s right for the State of South Carolina to fly the flag of the Confederacy a “little issue,” and then tried to claim that institutional racism is not a problem in South Carolina.
“Here’s what I think the question underlying all of this is,” Huckabee said, trying to redirect the conversation. “We’re asking, ‘Is South Carolina a racist state because of the flag that flies on their Capitol grounds?'”
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In fact, that’s actually not the argument, even if Gov. Huckabee would like it to be. The argument is whether or not the State should fly a flag that some claim to be a symbol of “heritage,” but that many others believe is a symbol of hate, oppression, and treason.
The former Arkansas governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate insisted institutional racism is not a problem in the Palmetto State because South Carolina “is a state that largely white people elected a female governor of Indian descent and the first ever African American United States senator from the South.”
And then he compared the response of people in Charleston, who lost nine citizens including a state senator and two pastors, to the acts of a person Huckabee himself called a “lunatic racist,” to the response of the people in Ferguson and other cities where legitimate members of the government – the police – killed unarmed Black citizens.
“I think we’ve seen the people of South Carolina and their character by what you saw in Charleston with people of all races, Democrats, Republicans from every perspective hugging, praying. Nobody was burning down their community. They weren’t breaking windows. They weren’t beating up on cops. They were exhibiting a true Christian spirit that really is, I think, exemplary to the rest of the country.”
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Image: Screenshot via NBC News