Bakari Sellers, a CNN analyst and former South Carolina state politician, hit back at conservatives lashing out at former Vice President Joe Biden for making a flippant comment about black voters.
After Sen. Lindsay Graham called the comments “truly offensive” and that they showed an insight into liberal thinking, Sellers, who is black, accused the South Carolina Republican of picking and choosing when he wants to talk about race.
Sit this one out. You are quiet on #AhmaudArbery, quiet on #BreonnaTaylor, quiet on Trumps casual racism.
You don’t get to use race as political currency.
(Side note I’ve never seen you at an Orangeburg Massacre Memorial) https://t.co/s6qY80ixIO
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) May 22, 2020
“Sit this one out,” Sellers tweeted Friday. “You are quiet on #AhmaudArbery, quiet on #BreonnaTaylor, quiet on Trump’s casual racism. You don’t get to use race as political currency. (Side note I’ve never seen you at an Orangeburg Massacre Memorial).”
The Orangeburg Massacre refers to a 1960s clash in South Carolina when police opened fire on black students protesting against racial segregation, ending with three black teenagers dead and 27 other people wounded.
Mercedes Schlapp, a senior adviser for President Trump’s reelection campaign, also tweeted: “.@JoeBiden has no respect for Blacks with his #YouAintBlack comment. The one guy who supported the Crime Bill, which led to mass incarceration of so many Black men.”
To Schlapp, Sellers said her husband, Matt Schlapp, who is the chairman of the American Conservative Union, once made a racially insensitive remark toward him.
???
Your husband once called me, a full grown black man, “Boy” during a commercial break.
Please stop. https://t.co/kEASCBx6AY
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) May 22, 2020
“Your husband once called me, a full grown black man, ‘Boy’ during a commercial break,” Sellers said. “Please stop.”
In 2017, Sellers and Matt Schlapp got in a small Twitter spat over the same incident.
“This is typical for @mschlapp,” Sellers said about a video link showing Schlapp arguing with another commentator. “He is just disrespectful. Matt once called me ‘boy’ during a commercial break.”
In response, Schlapp sarcastically tweeted back, “Bakari, you are a total class act.”
In a Friday interview on The Breakfast Club, Biden discussed with radio host Charlamagne tha God how he could appeal to black voters and how he differentiates with his opponent, Trump.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden said.
