Governor of Former Slave State: We’ve Never Had Racist Laws
Nikki Haley, who not-so-subtly addressed Trump’s call to ban all Muslim immigrants during last night’s State of the Union response, has responded to criticism from Trump by holding fast to her position. And also by apparently forgetting that slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the Trail of Tears (along with the rest of a not at all insignificant portion of American history) ever happened.
Haley, who spoke last night through clenched jaw, urged the country’s conservatives not to follow “the siren call of the angriest voices”—which is a very fancy way of saying Donald Trump. Trump then called her “weak on illegal immigration.”
In defending her positions to reporters this afternoon, Haley let loose a bizarre, amnesiac tale of our country’s past.
“When you’ve got immigrants who are coming here legally, we’ve never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion,” Haley said to reporters in South Carolina, which removed the state capitol’s Confederate flag just this past summer at Haley’s own behest.
“Let’s not start that now,” continued the woman who presides over a state that made it illegal for “any white man to intermarry with any woman of either the Indian or negro races” until 1967.
“We’ve gone too far than to go back into a race and religion issue. I’ve been through those fights. That’s not worth it.”
South Carolina forbid any restaurant or cafeteria from serving “white and colored passengers in the same room, or at the same table, or at the same counter” until 1954.
[h/t Talking Points Memo, which was apparently unfazed by the Governor’s selective memory]
Note: This article’s headline originally read “Governor Whose Marriage Would Have Been a Crime in Her State 50 Years Ago: We’ve Never Had Racist Laws.” However, we’ve been unable to confirm whether the term “Indian” in South Carolina’s anti-miscegenation laws applied to Native Americans or people from India, so we have altered it to what you see above.
