Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said to a reporter on Wednesday who asked him if he condemned “white supremacy and white nationalism.”
The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur educated reporters on his stance that white supremacy is not to blame. On the other hand, however, “affirmative action” caused a lot of strife and racial conflict in the country, he explained.
“Of course I condemn any form of cruel racial discrimination in this country. But I think that the premise of your question is fundamentally based on a falsehood which is actually the main form of racial discrimination that we see in this country today,” he said. told a Washington Post reporter during a campaign event in Scott County, Iowa.
“Institutionalized racism is the institutionalized racial discrimination that we see does not come from somehow discriminating against people on the basis of some temporary white supremacy. It is based on affirmative action. It is based on actually discriminating against people on the color of their skin in a way that is actually institutionalized today,” added Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy acknowledged that in the past, “violent forms of anti-black or anti-brown discrimination” did exist in the US, but he chided journalists for “looking in the rearview mirror … to raise questions today that are so far from what they really are.”
Ramaswamy received the endorsement of former Rep. Iowa Republican Steve King on Tuesday. Reuters
“I think, frankly, it’s questions and framing like that, that cause the American public to lose all faith in the mainstream media,” he said.
A Washington Post reporter then jumped in, telling the GOP candidate, “You’re not saying that you condemn white supremacy.”
To which, Ramaswamy replied, “I’m not, I’m not going to read you a catechism,” reiterating that he was “against brutal racial discrimination in this country.”
“I do not pledge allegiance to your new religion of modern revivalism,” continued the increasingly agitated White House hopeful, accusing the reporter of asking “stupid questions.”
“You want to know what is the best way to end discrimination on the basis of race? Stop discrimination on the basis of race – do that and we will progress this country,” said Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy is polling in fourth place in the Iowa primary race, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Reuters
The reporter’s question stemmed from Ramaswamy’s endorsement by former Rep. The controversial Iowa. Steve King on Tuesday.
King, who served 18 years in the House of Representatives, lost his primary race to Rep. Republicans. Randy Feenstra in June 2020 after being stripped of his committee duties for comments that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle deemed offensive and racist.
“White nationalists, white supremacy, Western civilization – how did that language become offensive?” King, 74, told The New York Times in January 2019.
He later released a statement saying that rejects “those labels and the evil ideology they define.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
