Virginia Senate hopeful Corey Stewart dropped by AM Joy to help Reverend Al Sharpton and podcast host Touré understand that no one cares about racism anymore. As anyone with anything other than a walnut-sized brain would predict, it did not go well for him.
Before the above video began, Rev. Sharpton had been trying to get Stewart to define racism. In response, he claimed the tired line that the left-wing media is "obsessed" with race, and no one outside that bubble cares. Sharpton persisted, asking again for him to define it, going further to ask if Stewart still believed racism still existed. Stewart finally defined it, but said he hasn't seen it.
Sharpton countered with examples of the racism Stewart claimed he hasn't seen, like Black unemployment being twice that of white, despite the economy doing well. Sharpton asked how Stewart's fave president would "close the gap." He answered, "By raising EVERYONE up!" "But how?" asked Sharpton? "Affirmative Action?"
"BY RAISING EVERYONE UP," said Stewart! Wheeeeee! Sharpton, using math, hit back with the fact that raising everyone up still leaves Black unemployment at twice that of white. NAAAAAAAAH, says Stewart. Raising everyone up disproportionately improves things for the "working class," including Black people!
At this point, Sharpton cuts him off and turns to Touré, who proceeds to drop the mic.
TOURÉ: Part of what I hear is part of why Black people are not dealing with the GOP at this point. He's talking about that we are obsessed with race, right? And he has this color blind approach that everybody will rise. We know that's not the case. This is a white supremacist country and we have to deal with that every day, in everything. in how we relate to police, in how we relate to jobs, in how we relate to the criminal justice system, everything. When you talk about we are obsessed with race, what we hear is, "I don't want to deal with race. I want to not talk about it. You should not talk about it." That is
SHARPTON: They don't have to talk about it. They're not the ones that are...
TOURÉ: And that is offensive to us in that you're just not going to deal with it at all. We have to deal with it. You will never have more than a sliver of the Black community voting for you as long as you're talking about, we are obsessed with race, which is a way of saying, stop talking about it. Stop telling me to stop talking about it. This is an incredibly important thing that affects my life. I understand that as a straight, white male that doesn't affect your life. If you want to represent other people, including Black Virginians, then you need to deal with what is actually affecting their lives.
Note, in the video, how Stewart laughed — LAUGHED — when Touré talked about having to deal with being black in every aspect of his life. This was funny to him. After Stewart collected himself, he answered by repeating that he has strong support from his district's minority community because they know he supports what is good for EVERYBODY. He repeated the lie that most people outside the media just don't care about race.
Rev. Sharpton wondered why, then, when he himself was in Virginia preaching in Black churches, hundreds of people shared with him that race was indeed a very pressing concern of theirs. Is it possible Stewart just wasn't talking to the right variety of people? Nope, insisted Stewart. Because the people Stewart spoke with are all normal people. Yes, he said that.
SHARPTON: Maybe the reason that you're not hearing a lot about race is you're not talking to a lot of people that have a different race. Couldn't that be the case, Corey?
STEWART: No, it's not. In fact, I've been visiting hundreds of people at state fairs, in shopping malls, in grocery stores, in schools. I'm talking to normal people in Prince William County. I don't know if you were there...
SHARPTON: Oh, so, you're saying the people that go to church, you're saying the people that go to church in Virginia are not NORMAL people??
STEWART: Yesterday -- yesterday I visited the mosque in my community. I visited African-American churches on a near-weekly basis.
SHARPTON: And none of them are concerned about race?
STEWART: You know they're concerned about?
SHARPTON: I asked you a question.
STEWART: Let me tell you what they told me they're concerned about...
CERTAINLY nothing related to race, right Corey? Nope. The economy! Good jobs, good schools, just like white people are...but nothing about race. Not-a-one POC has complained to him about it.
Astonished by the world of incredible racial equanimity and balance Stewart's current and potential constituents seem to inhabit, Touré asked the following:
TOURÉ: Is there anything that your Black constituents or potential Black constituents want, that your white constituents don't need?
STEWART: No.
TOURÉ: Nothing?
STEWART: It's all the same thing.
Welp. There you have it, folks. The denial and gas-lighting is strong with this one. Corey Stewart looked two Black media stars in the face — one a legend whose civil rights activism spans decades — and claimed there was absolutely zero difference between the needs of white people and Black people in the Commonwealth of Virginia. No one is concerned about race except the liberal media. Especially in Virginia. Just ask Heather Heyer's parents.
