On Saturday morning’s Velshi, MSNBC host Ali Velshi collaborated with author and co-chair of leftist group Color of Change Heather McGhee for a hateful segment where the two leftists declared that all who oppose their policy preferences are racist.
Velshi declared that “the false belief that progress and prosperity for people of color comes at the expense of white people has helped prop up racist systems for generations” and McGhee insanely claimed that “there's such a fierce antigovernment skepticism and suspicion among the majority of white voters'' because of the “idea that government is on the side of people of color.”
The ever woke Velshi, who enjoys going on rants about social justice, began the segment by claiming that white people “prop up” systems which “are not in their economic interests” in order prevent “progress and prosperity for people of color” and uncritically promoting McGhee’s leftist book "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together":
Racism is something that has defined the United States since its very founding. In fact, it infects nearly all facets of American life like health care about which we just heard. But it also affects our politics and our economics. The false belief that progress and prosperity for people of color comes at the expense of white people has helped prop up racist systems for generations. This zero-sum theory is what author Heather McGhee tackles in her new book "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together." In it, she examines the self-destructive bargain of white supremacy and how much we've lost economically as a country due to racism in terms of a dollar amount. A study released last year by Citigroup found that America has lost at least $16 trillion to racism in the last two decades and Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us, joins me now. Heather, thank you for being with us. I’ve enjoyed listening to you -- you were on with my friend Chris Hayes last night and one of the things that appeals to me about your book is the discussion that you have about how people, often white people or people who have power and privilege in society, often make decisions that are not in their economic interests or work against their own prosperity because they feel like giving other people, in this case black people, certain rights and privileges will take away some of their own.
Velshi’s woke monologue enabled McGhee to nastily claim that “the majority of white voters who have voted for the Republican Party” and white people who oppose big government and the “pretty modest” ObamaCare do so because they are racist:
White people are actually the largest group of the uninsured and yet ever since the Affordable Care Act was signed by our first black president, the majority of white people have disapproved of the pretty modest idea that is ObamaCare and there’s a huge correlation between racial resentment against black people and the southern, in most cases, states and also Maine which is the whitest state in the nation's refusal to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare. So it's this idea that government is on the side of people of color and that is why there's such a fierce antigovernment skepticism and suspicion among the majority of white voters -- the majority of white voters who have voted for the Republican Party for president.
Stereotyping a whole group of people based on their race sounds well, racist. Of course, race baiting is nothing new to McGhee, as last year on MSNBC she claimed that white people vote for Republicans due to “white fear and resentment of black people.”
Velshi added that “Republicans are working against” President Biden’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 a hour due to racism, and not because it would cost 1.4 million Americans their jobs.
Not done with advocating for Biden’s policy proposals, McGhee contended that Republicans oppose student loan forgiveness due to racism and kept on hammering in her absurd point that the “majority of white people” vote for the Republican Party in order to suppress black people:
It was only after the civil rights system and the integration of our education system and the right were turned away from government solutions by the majority of white voters that we began to cut back and that's why we have this debt for diploma system…Free college and student loan debt cancellation is much more enthusiastically supported by black people. It's still supported by the majority of white people but the biggest opposition in Congress is the Republican Party, that the majority of white people, nonetheless, despite what it's costing them, continue to send into power.
Velshi did not push back against any of this lunacy but instead told McGhee that her “book is great.”
MSNBC is not a news network but is a forum for leftists to spout hatred at those who oppose their policy goals.
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Read the full February 27th transcript here:
Velshi
2/27/21
8:50:56 AM
ALI VELSHI: Racism is something that has defined the United States since its very founding. In fact, it infects nearly all facets of American life like health care about which we just heard. But it also affects our politics and our economics. The false belief that progress and prosperity for people of color comes at the expense of white people has helped prop up racist systems for generations. This zero-sum theory is what author Heather McGhee tackles in her new book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. In it, she examines the self-destructive bargain of white supremacy and how much we've lost economically as a country due to racism in terms of a dollar amount. A study released last year by Citigroup found that America has lost at least $16 trillion to racism in the last two decades and Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us, joins me now. Heather, thank you for being with us. I -- I’ve enjoyed listening to you -- you were on with my friend Chris Hayes last night and one of the things that appeals to me about your book is the discussion that you have about how people, often white people or people who have power and privilege in society, often make decisions that are not in their economic interests or work against their own prosperity because they feel like giving other people, in this case black people, certain rights and privileges will take away some of their own.
HEATHER MCGHEE (AUTHOR OF THE SUM OF US: WHAT RACISM COSTS EVERYONE AND HOW WE CAN PROSPER TOGETHER): That's exactly right. I mean, to stay on the issue of -- of health care, which you've covered so well Ali, you know, white people are actually the largest group of the uninsured and yet ever since the Affordable Care Act was signed by our first black president, the majority of white people have disapproved of the pretty modest idea that is ObamaCare and there’s a huge correlation between racial resentment against black people and the southern, in most cases, states and also Maine which is the -- the whitest state in the nation refusal to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare. So it's this idea that government is on the side of people of color and that is why there's such a fierce anti-government skepticism and suspicion among the majority of white voters -- the majority of white voters who have voted for the Republican Party for president, I'll remind you, ever since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.
VELSHI: And so that's healthcare. The issues of wages, it's the same topic. While -- while black people earn less than white people do, if we increase the minimum wage to $15, which Republicans are working against in the Congress -- in -- in the Senate right now, lots and lots and lots of white people would benefit from too. More white people would benefit from it than black people.
MCGHEE: Exactly, that -- the fight for 15 has been spearheaded by black workers all over the country and yet it is a truly multiracial working class coalition. I spoke with Fight for $15 workers across the country in my research for The Sum of Us and, you know, the majority of people making under $15 a hour are white and yet white voters keep putting in power a party that doggedly refuses to raise the minimum wage beyond a poverty wage. But I'll never forget a conversation I had with a fast food worker named Bridget, white woman who had been steeped in this sort of zero-sum, anti-black, anti-immigrant world view and it changed for her when she linked arms with black and brown workers at her Wendy's and McDonald's shifts and decided that she could actually see herself in the workers across the color line and what she said to me was “It's not a matter of us versus them. As long as we're divided,” she said, “We're conquered.”
VELSHI: I want to ask you about student debt because that's an issue that we are currently discussing right now. I want to show you a chart of student loan debt held by black people and white people. If you look at people under the age of 35, it's almost matched, the percentage of black people and white -- non-black people who have debt. Once you get to 35 to 44, in fact, it ends up being more black people than -- than non-black people and the same thing once you get above age 45. But the bottom line is lots and lots of people of all races have student debt. Another issue in which if people got together and figured out how to address this, it would benefit all of society.
MCGHEE: That's exactly right. I cover this issue in the book because we used to have a system in this country where the government picked up the tab for people to go to college between well-funded state schools by state governments and federal governments giving grants, not loans, in the form of the Pell Grant or the G.I. Bill, and all of this free college system was back when the majority, 90+ percent of the folks going to college were white and it was only after the civil rights system and the integration of our education system and the right were turned away from government solutions by the majority of white voters that we began to cut back and that's why we have this debt for diploma system. And so yes, eight out of ten black students have to borrow, and that's mainly because of a racial wealth divide which means that black families typically because they were excluded deliberately from all of the wealth building policies over the course of the 20th century, don't have the same kind of cushion to invest in -- in college and yet the fact is that the majority of white students, six out of ten have to borrow too. That free college and student loan debt cancellation is much more enthusiastically supported by black people. It's still supported by the majority of white people but the biggest opposition in Congress is the Republican Party, that the majority of white people, nonetheless, despite what it's costing them, continue to send into power.
VELSHI: The book is great, Heather. But I -- I really like books whose titles tell you the exact story and yours is called The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. It is an economic argument about whether if we come together to fix these things, it isn't a zero-sum game. All boats will rise.
