“Tim Scott there, I think he’s on the one hand trying to reach out to black voters, but I think he’s also there to give white voters who might be worried about voting for someone like Donald Trump, who says all sorts of racist comments, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are there to say listen Donald Trump isn’t as racist as you think he is or as racist as he often sounds because here is Tim Scott praising him, here is Nikki Haley praising him and a number of other African-Americans woven throughout tonight,” Henderson said.
“On one hand they had Tim Scott there, you had Donald Trump Jr. at some point denounce racism and saying America needs to end the scourge of racism,” she said. “But then you had these other couples there who were talking about this fear that they had. We know what that fear is about. This is the fear of the other, fear of black and brown people, fear of poor people, and that ran throughout this entire convention, this idea that the Democrats, who again are very diverse party, now they have an African-American and an Indian woman in the number two slot, that is the fear that they are conjuring up.”
Later Monday night during CNN’s coverage, Henderson said giving Scott and Haley prominent speaking slot was the party’s way of putting black politicians and people of color in front of independent white voters and telling them what they “need to hear to feel comfortable.”
Nia-Malika Henderson on the McCloskeys:
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: We talk about the culture war here. Obviously there is a racial component to it. It’s not a coincidence that the McCloskeys were aiming their guns at people who were Black Lives Matter protesters. So there is this kind of, I think, in some ways, arguments that are in conflict with one another.
On one hand they had Tim Scott there, you had Donald Trump Jr. at some point denounce racism and saying America needs to end the scourge of racism. But then you had these other couples there who were talking about this fear that they had. We know what that fear is about. This is the fear of the other, fear of black and brown people, fear of poor people, and that ran throughout this entire convention, this idea that the Democrats, who again are very diverse party, now they have an African-American and an Indian woman in the number two slot, that is the fear that they are conjuring up.
Tim Scott there, I think he’s on the one hand trying to reach out to black voters, but I think he’s also there to give white voters who might be worried about voting for someone like Donald Trump, who says all sorts of racist comments, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are there to say listen Donald Trump isn’t as racist as you think he is or as racist as he often sounds because here is Tim Scott praising him, here is Nikki Haley praising him and a number of other African-Americans woven throughout tonight.
We’ll see what else comes over these next couple of days. I thought it was kind of a repetitive the way that everyone kind of stood up there and spoke. There were speeches rather than conversations. I thought with viewers. So in that way it had a kind of flat effect at least as I was viewing it.
