Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith was seen joking about hangings in a video posted to Twitter Sunday and some say this makes her unfit to serve as senator.
“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” the senator joked in the video. ⠀⠀⠀
Mississippi had the highest number of lynchings in the nation between 1882 and 1968, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Hyde-Smith, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, temporarily succeeded Thad Cochran amid health concerns until the special election is resolved.
Former Democratic Rep. Mike Espy, will face Hyde-Smith in a runoff election on November 27 for the Mississippi Senate.
Espy who is African American, calls her comments “reprehensible.”
He insisted on CNN’s “New Day” Monday morning that Hyde’s comments were “disappointing” and poorly represented the state.
“They are hurtful to millions of Mississippians who are people of goodwill,” Espy said. “And they’re harmful because they tend to reinforce the stereotypes that have held back our state for so long and that have cost us jobs and harmed our economy.”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In the video, Hyde-Smith is speaking during a campaign event about the support of a Mississippi rancher, Colin Hutchinson.
The video clip surfaced and was met with immediate backlash, having more than 2 million views by Sunday night.
Hyde-Smith issued a statement on Sunday, but she maintains unapologetic.
“In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.”
However, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, also from Mississippi, didn’t think so.
“Hyde-Smith’s decision to joke about ‘hanging’ when the history of African Americans is marred by countless incidents of this barbarous act, is sick,” he said in a statement Sunday.
“Any politician seeking to serve as a national voice of the people of Mississippi should know better,” he added.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If he wins, Espy would become the first black senator to represent Mississippi since the Reconstruction era.
Espy said in a statement Sunday, “We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.”
On CNN Monday, Espy called Hyde-Smith’s comments “tone deaf,” but refused to call her racist when asked. He instead spoke as a unifying candidate.
“My campaign is the campaign that tries to reach across the racial chasm, reach across the party chasm and bring us together,” Espy said.
Johnson says her “shameful remarks prove once again how Trump has created a climate that normalizes hateful, racist rhetoric from political candidates.”
Hyde-Smith’s comments come less than a year after the FBI investigated the death of a black man hanging from a tree in Mississippi back in February.
Mississippi Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Karl Oliver, also faced tough criticism in May 2017 after he posted on Facebook that people should be lynched for removing Confederate monuments.
"If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her.
Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. pic.twitter.com/0a9jOEjokr
— Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 11, 2018
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