“Graham made the comment in a televised ‘conversation’ with his political rival, former South Carolina Democratic party chair Jaime Harrison, the first African American to serve in the role.
He made the remark in the context of political careers, and said Harrison would lose because he is a Democrat, not because he is Black.
‘Do I believe our cops are systemically racist? No. Do I believe South Carolina is a racist state? No. Let me tell you why. To young people out there, young people of color, young immigrants, this is a great state, but one thing I can say without any doubt, you can be an African American and go to the Senate but you just have to share our values.’
He went on to say: ‘If you’re a young, African American or an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you just need to be conservative, not liberal”.
The Guardian
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham believes that if you’re a young African America you can go far in South Carolina and in Trump’s America as long as you are a conservative.
Graham wears rose-colored glasses in which systemic racism and police brutality don’t exist and blacks and other minorities can go far as long as they subscribe to conservative dogma that dehumanizes immigrants, Muslims, blacks, gays and women.
In other words, as long as they are Uncle Toms like the other senator from his state, Tim Scott, they are welcome under the GOP big tent. Just slap on an ingratiating smile like Scott, and you will go far young black man.
But if you are a black liberal who spouts nonsense like criminal justice reform, racial equality, reparations, Medicare for all …, you will be treated like a second-class citizen.
The voters of South Carolina must reject Graham’s plantation mentality, it has no place it a religiously and ethnically diverse democracy.
Graham is a self-loathing gay man who knows his fellow Republicans would turn against him if he sashayed out of the closet. He denies his sexual orientation, and he expects African Americans to likewise deny the progressive agenda that accepts them as equal members of our democracy. Sorry Lady G, not everyone is a sniveling coward like you.