Nikki Haley's Very Proud Of Black Friends She Had Growing Up, Like Denise Huxtable ... And Tootie From 'Facts Of Life'

She's a Lost Cause.

Jan 08, 2024

Chris Christie famously ended Marco Rubio’s presidential ambitions at the 2016 New Hampshire presidential debate. Now, he’s having a similar effect on Nikki Haley’s 2024 campaign. He just triggered another disastrous news cycle for Haley and he wasn’t even on the same stage with her.

Thursday, during a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, Haley was asked about Christie’s remarks that she’d neglected to mention “slavery” when discussing the Civil War at a New Hampshire campaign event because she’s afraid to “offend anyone by telling truth.” Haley’s response made Rubio’s debate meltdown look downright eloquent.

“No one’s ever said that I am unwilling to offend,” she said. “I offend plenty of people, because I call people out when they do something wrong.” This is the same town hall where she promised to pardon Donald Trump even if he’s convicted of major felonies.

“What I will tell you is Chris Christie is from New Jersey. I should have said slavery right off the bat. But if you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery … It is a very talked-about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina, when it comes to, you know, slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War, all of that.”

Haley’s suggestion that unlike her Yankee opponent she obviously learned about slavery because she grew up in South Carolina is outright nonsense. I’m a couple years younger than she is and I grew up with schoolteachers promoting Lost Cause propaganda, especially regarding slavery. The Civil War was usually referred to as the “War of Northern Aggression” — not as a joke — and “states’ rights” was presented as the motivation behind secession. She could’ve owned up to this and called out how even Gen-X southern kids were taught that slavery wasn’t so bad and enslaved people were rarely beaten: “That’d be like deliberately crashing your own car!” (For real, we were told that in second grade.)

Instead, she plumbed the depths of banality and said (out loud), “I had Black friends growing up!” That’s gone real well for her, as you can see:

It’s unclear why she felt it necessary to even mention her supposed Black friends. We didn’t make it our business to educate non-Black people on the Civil War and slavery. It’s more than just a sore point for us. Dismantling white people’s antebellum fantasies was a good way to get expelled from school or fired from your job as a “trouble maker.”

Haley’s father reportedly rented a house in Bamberg, South Carolina, in 1969 on the landlord’s condition that the family not entertain Black guests. This is before Haley was born, and it’s not like she signed the contract. However, people like Haley too often invoke childhood memories of Black people when justifying their current bigotry. They never reflect on the true nature of that relationship.

I remember receiving early Facebook requests from former white classmates exclaiming, “My dear friend!” and mentioning anecdotes from our time together in grade school. I was literally never allowed in their homes. Nowadays, a teacher won’t let a student publicly, in class, invite every student but one to their birthday party but that was a regular event for me. When you’re on the receiving end of that racism when you’re nine years old, you damn well remember it.

When I entered adulthood and met other people of color from similar backgrounds as mine, there was a common thread — we were usually the only POC in our classes and it was often miserable but the other non-minority students were completely oblivious. Sure, they remember that we were also on that fun class field trip to Six Flags. They associate us with those pleasant memories but they’ve forgotten (or maybe didn't notice) that we explored the amusement park alone.

Haley defended her cringe comments on Friday. “What I will tell you is saying that I had Black friends is a source of pride,” she insisted. You’ll notice she still uses the past tense. Besides, Black people aren’t trophies. There’s a reason that “pride” is considered the worst sin. True friendship requires humility.

Let’s examine what she said about the Confederate Flag at the CNN town hall: “I knew half of South Carolinians saw the Confederate flag as heritage and tradition ... my job wasn’t to judge either side ... that is the way we have to work on issues that try and divide us ... a leader doesn’t decide who’s right.”

This is shameful moral abdication but also disingenuous compared to Haley’s staunch position on so many other issues. Yet, she tip toes around a symbol of white supremacist hatred. It’s a desperate dance she’s often performed with Confederate apologists. Meanwhile, she’s never held back on criticizing Barack Obama, the first Black president who remains a symbol of hope and achievement for most Black people. Black South Carolinians don’t hang the Confederate Flag in their homes but they do have framed photos of Barack and Michelle. Yet Haley has dared say, “Barack Obama set minorities back by singling them out as victims instead of empowering them.” If she actually had any Black friends, she’d know that you never suggest that another Black person has “set us back.”

But Haley isn’t a true friend of Black people, nor has she ever spoken to us as a friend. She’s still talking to the good white people of Bamberg, South Carolina, and it shows.

[The Hill / The Daily Beast]

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