Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) on Wednesday suggested that House Republicans are using the Benghazi select committee to target President Obama due to his race.
NewsOne Now host Roland Martin asked Clyburn, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, if he saw “similarities in terms of where we are as a country” now to what he experienced in the Jim Crow South.
“I would not be all that concerned, for instance, about this new Benghazi select committee that we just put in place,” Clyburn responded, as recorded by Mediaite. “One of the reasons I’ve been very critical of doing this is because I know that they are not out there to try to find what may or may not have happened.”
The Democratic congressman said that there have been eight different studies on Benghazi, and that there’s no way Republicans have yet to find the answers they need.
“I seem to remember our history,” Clyburn said. “After reconstruction, when people of color gained political presence throughout the south, they drummed up all kinds of things, indictments and accusations, they drove these people out of the south. … Some went to Chicago, some came here to Washington D.C. And I see the same kind of efforts to discredit this president, this administration.”
“If I didn’t know the history of this country so well, I might not be as concerned as I am,” Clyburn continued, referencing the Benghazi committee. “I am concerned because I see us revisiting those same kinds of things that led to the end of Reconstruction at the end of the 1890s.”
Why the fuck isn’t Grayson on that committee? He’d treat it like it deserves to be treated.
And then Grayson would be all over the place, any available mic, every night, telling anyone who’ll listen how he’s going to set them straight, blah, blah, overlooking the reasonable choices Pelosi made. She chose five Democrats who have been on previous BENGH investigative committees who bring something more important than just the glibness Grayson would bring. There’s a reason he lost after one term, and I’m not sure how he got back for a second term.
Does this, and Rockefeller’s comment yesterday, mean that Democrats are ready to talk about GOP racism? Clyburn, of course, has been more willing than most to name it. Still, I hope that we’re finally ready to call it what it is.
Good Lord, I hope so! While it’s several years late, I welcome the discussion all the same.
They’re plenty of racist on the right but this ‘investigation’ is not about race it’s about politics. It’s more about Hilary at this point then it is about Obama actually but they will certainly throw mud on who ever they can. They would go after any Democrat regardless of race or gender, it what they do when they can’t win on ideas.