On Friday night, Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham debated his Democratic challenger Jamie Harrison virtually because Graham refused to submit to a COVID-19 test.
As a result, both Graham and Harrison were separately asked debate questions. And on a question about whether he’d met with leaders of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Graham said in part, “I care about everybody. If you’re a young African-American, an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you just need to be conservative, not liberal.”
The context of Graham’s horrid sound bite was that anyone can have a safe and secure political career in the state regardless of skin color as long as they’re conservative. “You can be an African-American and go to the Senate, you just have to share the values of our state,” he said earlier in his response, but his aforementioned closing line seemed to make the Black female moderator stammer as she moved onto the next question.
Graham’s response almost sounded like he was saying if you’re white, you’ll be completely okay in the state, but if you’re Black or from another country, you’ll only be okay if you’re conservative like him.
Of course, being conservative or pro-police doesn’t magically protect Black people from being harassed or killed, no matter what state you live in.
Twitter users weren’t impressed with Graham’s creepy answer: